Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and Its Discontents (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Almost 30 years ago, in his classic Orientalism, the late cultural critic Edward Said published a scathing denunciation of Oriental studies, blaming the field for the rise of Western imperialism and racist views about Arabs and other Eastern peoples. British historian Irwin (The Alhambra) fiercely condemns Said's misinterpretation, offering both a brilliant defense of Orientalism and a masterful intellectual history of the Orientalists and their work, which opened windows on the world of Asia in general and Islam in particular, providing the West with glimpses of the social and religious practices of these cultures. Irwin surveys the history of Orientalism from the Greeks through the Middle Ages to its height in the 18th and 19th centuries. He chronicles the lives and works of the men who introduced the ideas of Islamic and Asian culture to the West. Many of these men were biblical critics whose command of Hebrew allowed them to move easily to Arabic and to explore the Koran. In the 17th century, the dragomans, or translators, moved the study of Islam forward by providing translations of Turkish, Arabic and Persian texts. Irwin's wide-ranging study splendidly captures a time when intellectual polymaths traversed foreign territories in search of new and compelling ideas. (Oct.)
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Review

Latter-day Orientalists and students of intellectual history will benefit greatly from this study. -- Kirkus Reviews, July 2006

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 376 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover (November 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158567835X
• ISBN-13: 978-1585678358
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #626,480 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Counter Polemic, January 28, 2007

By	R. Albin (Ann Arbor, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This book seems to have been written in large part as a response to the late Edward Said's famous (some would say notorious) Orientalism. In the latter, Said argued the Orientalism (in the limited sense used by Irwin, though Said clearly had a broader use in mind), the scholarly activity of investigating the Orient, is inextricably bound up and indeed is a driver of Western racism, imperialism, and colonialism. Irwin disagrees strongly, and in this decently written book, provides some very good criticism of Said. Irwin attacks Said on a narrow but important front; is Said's account and interpretation of the scholarly tradition of Orientialism correct? Most of Dangerous Knowledge is a chronologically organized history of Western scholarly contact with Arabic traditions. Irwin limits himself primarily to Arabic studies because this is where Said concentrates his critique. Irwin makes a very good case that Said misrepresents this scholarly tradition and misunderstands much of its historic context. According to Irwin, and the examples he cites are convincing, Said appears to have done only a superficial job of examining this tradition, perhaps to the level of not actually reading some of the historic figures criticized. Its worth mentioning that this narrative is worth reading in its own right and that while Irwin has not produced an in depth intellectual history, his historical account is informative and quite readable. In the course of this narrative, Irwin addresses some of Said's broader assertions about the nature of Orientalism and the Western tradition. Most of these criticisms seem well founded. In the last chapters of the book, Irwin turns to specific discussion of other aspects of Said's book and some of his other writings. Irwin continues to be quite critical, and again his critique makes sense.

Its important to specify that Irwin, unlike some of Said's critics, does not have a contemporary political axe to grind. Said was best known in this country as an outspoken advocate of the Palestinian cause and critic of the state of Israel. Said's work has been attacked as much for his stands on these issues as for his scholarly work itself. Irwin is careful to specify that he shares many of Said's opinions on these controversial issues.

One area where I disagree with Irwin is his repeated statements that Orientalism was written in bad faith, that is to say, Said knowingly produced the distortions and errors characteristic of his book. I find this unlikely. Most great deceptions involve self-deception and it is likely that Said sincerely believed that his interpretations were correct. Said's defect doesn't appear to be insincerity but a lack of intellectual rigor and a preference for highly intellectualized constructs over real data. This conclusion would be consistent with some of Said's other positions. His proposed solution, which he advocated without any irony, to the Israeli-Palestinian problem was a single, democratic state. A proposal so impractical as to be almost humorous.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yet Another Exposé of Said's Villany and Feeble Mindedness, July 29, 2008

By	Jazz It Up Baby - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and Its Discontents (Paperback)

Whatever specialists thought of Edward Said's Orientalism, published in 1978, the book had major impact on Middle East studies, as Nathan Alexander of Troy University points out. Its thesis was that "Orientalism" was a "hegemonic discourse of imperialism" that "constrains everything that can be written and thought in the West about the Orient, and particularly about Islam and the Arabs." Despite being panned by Arab and non-Arab critics, the book became a best-seller and its author a celebrity. Identifying himself as a Palestinian, Said launched vituperative attacks on his critics and demonized as "racist" those who opposed his views on the Middle East.

Irwin, Middle East editor of the Times Literary Supplement, accomplishes two things in his book Dangerous Knowledge. First, the book is a history of "Orientalism," or Western scholarship of the Middle East, India, and the Far East. Irwin begins with the ancient Greeks and concludes with a survey of Arab scholars writing on the Orient today. This magnificent survey covers French, German, Russian, Dutch, English, Latin, and Arabic scholarship. Irwin argues that while interest in the Orient was often influenced by Western Christianity, Western interest in the Islamic world was, for the most part, of negligible cultural significance. When scholarship on the Orient increased in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the "Orientalists" tended to either exaggerate the virtues of the Orient or be overt anti-imperialists.

Irwin's second purpose is to counter the "malignant charlatanry" that lies behind Said's Orientalism. It was unlikely, Irwin writes, that Said bothered to read many of the Orientalists who serve as his arch villains. In fact, Said knew so little of the field he was writing about that he spent much of his time insulting the scholar to whom he was unwittingly most indebted: Bernard Lewis. While Said frequently failed to properly attribute the sources of Orientalism, it is possible he was simply unaware of them.

Said's work, Irwin writes, has the merits of a good novel. "It is exciting; it is packed with lots of sinister villains, as well as an outnumbered band of goodies, and the picture that it presents of the world is richly imagined but essentially false." The real question posed by Orientalism is how it ever received acclaim in the first place. It is "a scandal and damning comment on the quality of intellectual life in Britain," he concludes. The same scandal, sadly, exists in the rest of the Western world, and especially the United States, whence the study comes.

46 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Righting a historical and scholarly injustice- Giving the Orientalists the understanding and appreciation they deserve , November 13, 2006

By	Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

There are giants of scholarship whose greatness is in opening whole new areas of study. There are other figures in scholarship whose claim to fame is in undermining a field of studies , a way of thought. Edward Said's most important work 'Orientalism' discredited the work of generations of Orientalists, all of whom he reinterpeted as tools of British and French colonialism and imperialism.
Now Robert Irwin a distinguished Orientalist himself makes an all- out attack on Said's work in a rich and detailed study of the whole scholarly tradition. In it he focuses on the individual stories of great Orientalists such as Postel, Goldhizer and in our day Bernard Lewis and reveals how their dedication to scholarship, to the world of knowledge, and often to the 'exotic societies ' which they studied were the great moving factors in their works.
The greatest part of Irwin's book is devoted to providing a detailed record of 'Orientalist scholarship' and only towards the end of the work does Irwin specifically attack the faulty scholarship, and ideological distortions of Said. But this is done not on an ad hominem basis but only in terms of Said's trashing of Orientalist scholarship.
This book is filled with fascinating portraits of remarkable individuals, and will be a delight to the general reader.