Restating Orientalism

"Edward Said's Orientalism not only inaugurated a new and highly controversial arena of discourse but also set the terms of debate around knowledge, power, and imperialism since 1978, when the book first appeared. The substance of discussions remains extensively political, limited to the so-called problem of knowledge and power and the complicity of Orientalism in the larger project of colonialism. One of the many critiques was that Said was too sweeping in his condemnation of Orientalists, leaving no analytical space for distinguishing degrees of difference between one scholar and another.…