Reviews of Edward Said’s Book Orientalism

Running head REVIEW ESSAY ABOUT EDWARD SAID’S BOOK ORIENTALISM 1
Review Essay about Edward Said’s Book Orientalism
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REVIEW ESSAY ABOUT EDWARD SAID’S BOOK ORIENTALISM 2
Introduction
Until the time he passed away, Edward Said was the professor in the department of
literature at Columbia University. He was also the Middle East activist, scholar, as well as the
eminent individual in postcolonial studies. He gained a reputation as the intellectual. As a fellow
at Stanford University, he was able to publish his most acclaimed piece of writing, Orientalism,
the book that has provided fodder for discussion in several disciplines. Therefore, this essay
reviews Edward Said’s book Orientalism.
Reviews of Edward Said’s Book Orientalism
According to Edward Said, Orientalism refers to the collection of dogmas and
suppositions describing Western perception along with attitudes towards the Middle East. The
West is recorded in the book to have been consistent in its prejudice against the Islamic
individuals (Yang, 2019). Orientalism is presented to be the groundbreaking ideas that shook the
fields of studies in the Middle East, Post colonialism, and survey amid the West alongside East
after its publication in 1978. In Orientalism, Edward Said claims that scholars from the West
have depicted the East inaccurately because they lack the true understanding of the culture.
Edward Said is of the view that Western scholars that examine Asian affairs have formed the
body of intelligence that is concentrated on generalization rather than targeted facts (Kujath,
2019). The West, therefore, is considered in Edward Said’s book Orientalism defines itself in its
description of the East.
The notion of “us” together with “them” is entrenched, and the two terms are viewed as
being antithetical. In the contemporary globe, the West sees the East concerning Islam and oil.
The later is, in other times, equated to terrorism (Yang, 2019). The book further gives more