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Friday, June 02, 2006

Book Review: Defending the Orientalists

One testimony to the impact of Edward Said's book Orientalism is that almost three decades after its publication, people are still arguing with its main premise.

This is a review of a new book on orientalism, For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and their Enemies by Robert Irwin --a book whose "argumentative thrust... is to unmask Said’s Orientalism as a perverted muddle of ‘malignant charlatanry’'"

What I don't understand is why can't they criticize Said without calling him names?

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