All and all, this is a great text that, even as a slow reader, was finished quickly and was extremely enjoyable and valuable, o...  Read More

All and all, this is a great text that, even as a slow reader, was finished quickly and was extremely enjoyable and valuable, opening up a new area of study in a way that allows one to access a whole new problematic that may have previously appeared only as invisibility.  Read Less

As said aptly points out, the oriental (a term we stray from using today for its obviously racist undertones which said careful...  Read More

As said aptly points out, the oriental (a term we stray from using today for its obviously racist undertones which said carefully traces across modern history and in the history of colonialism) is put into a position where he is to embody contradictory qualities simultaneously such that his identity is always one of negativity, an instrumental object for the purposes of the westerner’s use: lacking in rationality yet containing the birth of our modern sciences and religious traditions, disorganized yet forming vast networks of control (apropos the caliphate), static and forever solidified as a continuous identity that can be understood whilst simultaneously being unwieldy and schizophrenic in their diversity.  Read Less

To *be* an oriental is to embody certain assumptions which become proliferated by a discourse (orientalism) whose construction ...  Read More

To *be* an oriental is to embody certain assumptions which become proliferated by a discourse (orientalism) whose construction is such that it is essentially unfalsifiable.  Read Less

To summarize, the western assumptions and opinions about the orient and its people are short sighted, ignorant, and mostly degrading.

To summarize, the western assumptions and opinions about the orient and its people are short sighted, ignorant, and mostly degrading.  Read Less

All of these are used to back the oriental into a corner such that he is merely a tool which can be utilized by the westerner.

All of these are used to back the oriental into a corner such that he is merely a tool which can be utilized by the westerner.  Read Less