Orientalism  

Page by Ellie Veryard and Liam Geoghegan. 

From an historians point of view, there is one theory that sits at the centre of research in to colonialism, and the legacy that colonising states left behind – that of “otherness”, first described by the Israeli-American literary theorist, Edward Said. Said’s work – Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient (1995) – has changed the way that historians look at not just colonialism, but almost all areas of history, as subjects become defined by what they are not, by their opposite, or “other”. 

Said claimed that Western study of the East reveals more about the Western world than that which is being examined, as the prejudices unconsciously, but fundamentally, inherent in each Westerner shows much about that person’s world, but leaves their research on the Orient damagingly one-sided. In Said’s opinion, this notion of “Orientalism” is so ingrained in society, that it is basically impossible for a Westerner to view the East in any other way. 

For Said, the West has come to view the Orient as ‘exotic’ – completely different to our own society.

Quotes from Said 

‘The Orient was almost a European Invention’ 

‘One of [Europe’s] deepest and most recurring images of the Other.’ 

‘European culture gained in strength and identity by setting itself off against the Orient.’ 

Opinion 

A ‘book that is now so much a part of so many interdisciplinary landscapes that its arguments—while open to many different sorts of criticisms and calls for modification—are difficult (and perhaps costly) for any historian to ignore.’

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