Culture and Imperialism

Said, who died in 2003, is considered one of the founders of the academic field of post-colonial studies. His seminal work, 1978’s Orientalism, explores the ways in which the West’s dominant vision of the East produced cultural stereotypes that either romanticized or barbarized the Eastern native. While geographically obvious, Said points out that the “Orient” was no more real a place than the “Occident”; these were imagined communities that sanctioned the imperial control and colonial endeavor of the Western world over indigenous peoples in the Middle East, in particular. With Culture and Imperialism, Said expands his view to include the ways in which imperialism is inextricably linked with cultural productions, and he claims that imperialism itself is the central geo-political force that has mapped out—quite literally—the contours of the modern world. Culture, far from being an innocent repository of refined contributions to the nation-state, is implicated in the imperial project that subjugates Others and misrepresents their histories and societies.

Said is deemed one of the most influential critics and scholars of the 20th century. As a Palestinian-born and American-educated intellectual, Said brings to his scholarship a unique perspective: “Ever since I can remember,” he writes in the Introduction, “I have felt that I belonged to both worlds, without being completely of either one or the other” (xxvi).