Customer Reviews

For Lust of Knowing

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Irwin's book, like Said's Orientalism, and like the other reviews of Irwin's book all suffer from the same problem--a confused sense of purpose. Are we to bash Arabs? Zionists? Orientalists? Imperialists? Muslims? The French? (yes, the french!)

Irwin's book--a fun read blessed with an English sense of wit, style, and flippancy--awkwardly combines (the awkwardness being Irwin's fault, as these topics do belong together) three topics: a history of the the study of the Orient, a critique of Said's critique of the study of the (so-called) Orient, and a plea for the reinvigoration of the study of the Orient. He succeeds admirably on the first, dully on the second, and, well, he does seem to plead . . .

Finer and more convincing critiques of Said's work have been done elsewhere--Irwin's consisting mainly of "gotcha" type errors (and Said is notoriously sloppy when it comes to facts). Begging for British institutions to beef up their Middle East studies programs is odd on two counts. First, the public's interest in the Mideast could hardly be higher. Second, British universities have, as Irwin himself shows, a rather lackadisical history when it comes to the study of the middle east--they do not have the same institutional dynamism that US universities do (although the Brits continue to produce very fine scholars).

What makes the book worthwhile is Irwin's account of the eccentric history of some of academia's most eccentric characters--many of whom did indeed study simply for the love of knowledge--while others were spies, some zionists, some anti-semites, some imperialists, some pacifists. Irwin's account does little to prove or disprove Said's (contentious) thesis, and would have been better off without trying to do both.

The book contains two things: a history of Islamic scholarship in the West, and a critique of Edward Said's book "Orientalism". I'm not really interested in the latter, hence the mere four stars. I only hoped the pages for second part (one long chapter) were devoted to the first! As Irwin says in the book, the rank of Oriental scholars in the West has more than their fair share of eccentrics; and it's sheer joy to read their biographies, though short. Sir Richard Burton is only briefly mentioned (for whom you've to refer to Rice's biography), but you'll meet the good Guillaume Postel and Edward Henry Palmer. This first part of the book is especially valuable as most of the source materials are difficult to get hold of for an ordinary reader.

... and hilarious! Mr. Irwin has authored several novels, and, no doubts, his non-fiction writing has only been improved by that.

So far, I found just a couple of rather strange ... aberrations? (I guess it is appropriate to use that word for a book populated by so many eccentrics). Mr. Irwin writes (pp. 19-20), "For reasons that remain misterious, the new conquerors [i.e., Arabs] were referred to in the earliest Latin sources either as 'Hagarenes' or as 'Saracens'." I've always thought there's nothing misterious about that: it's an old tradition of calling an ethnos by a name or place known to classical authors, or by a legendary ancestor. Hagar was mother of Ishmael, the ancestor of the Arabs, hence Hagarians. Saraceni were nomads mentioned by the late Greek authors, so here you go ...

Another example (p. 181): "It always rankled with [Edward] Palmer that he did not succeed to [William] Wright's professorship when the latter died." Something isn't right here. Palmer was murdered in 1882, Wright was succeeded by their mutual friend William Robertson Smith after Wright's death in 1889. With all Orientalists' eccentricity, it seems rather unusual for Palmer to be irritated by a fact that his friend and colleague outlived him.

Despite these minor editorial omissions, I wish could give more than five stars to this book.

As for the sad case of Said's "Orientalism," Mr. Irwin yet again "tore that book to pieces," which, naturally, will have no effect on Said's admirers. As any critique never had and never will on supporters of the "Black Athena," or on believers in the less known here in the West so called "New Chronology."

This is a rebutal to Edward Said's beselling diatribe against Western based scholarship on the Near East. It is also a balanced and careful history of Western (mainly European)study of Near Eastern languages, history and customs. Where Said grouped together almost every specialization in Middle Eastern studies under the same umbrella, Robert Irwin is careful to give each its proper attention.
He points out Said's typical use of over generalization and lack of attention to accuracy and is careful to say that it is not Said's stand on the Arab-Israelie conflict that he has fault with, just his somewhat distorted view of Western scholarship.

I got it in a timely fashion. It was in very good condition; actually looked like it had never been opened.

The product of many years of thinking and experience, this book offers a comprehensive guide to what it commonly called "Orientalism," that is, Western scholarship on Islam. In the process it demolishes Edward Said's specious but influential monograph.

This book is fun to read. It discusses the history of Orientalism and tells about some of the leading Orientalists. It also defends Orientalism as a legitimate scholarly field. And one may want to know why this topic of study needs any defense.

The reason becomes clear right from the start. Ed Said wrote a crazy rant against the whole enterprise. That ought to have had little effect on academia. But it did: plenty of people praised that book! And by now, to say that one is an Orientalist is to risk being branded as a servant of Imperialism, and maybe as a Zionistlover as well. I can see that Irwin is not too happy about the decline of Orientalism as a scholarly field.

Nor can Irwin be too happy with the discrediting of Middle Eastern Studies that has resulted from the acceptance of Said's nonsense by quite a few supposed intellectuals. That has resulted in Middle Eastern scholars being dismissed by some as a bunch of anti-scholarly racists and bigots who use their positions not to further knowledge but to propagandize against human rights and truth. Irwin is clearly embarrassed by the fact that his field is now associated with Said's polemical work. Yes, those who study the Middle East are under attack from both sides due to the politicization of the field.

I have to admit that I'm not the proper person to deliver an attack on Said's book "Orientalism." For one thing, the book is such garbage that I wouldn't know where to start. For another, what I say would count for very little. Not only am I not a scholar in that field, I also am an opponent of Said's entire war on human rights. I see Said as one of the biggest liars of the past century, and I feel that he was a truly evil creature. It would be difficult for me to convince most of those who like Said's works that I could write a genuinely unbiased and fair appraisal of the trash that he wrote.

That is one reason why it is good to have a view from an Orientalist who attacks Said on scholarly, rather than political grounds. Irwin certainly does not defend Israel or Zionism, and he defends Said from accusations of supporting terrorism (cleverly claiming that he merely praises terrorism "with faint damns"). I think Irwin is wrong here, but that's not the issue. The question is whether there is any merit in what Said wrote, and how much damage his stuff has done to the field of Orientalism.

Irwin says that "it is a scandal and a damning comment on the quality of intellectual life in Britain in recent decades that Said's arguments could ever have been taken seriously." And he notes that in some cases, folks sided with Said just to be anti-Zionist and anti-American. It sure must be fun for some people to taunt those who support human rights for Jews. But I think that the cost is severe if the whole field of Middle Eastern history and Orientalist studies is thus mangled. As for Said himself, I wonder why he did such a thing in the first place. Why, instead of attacking the Israelis or the Jews, or the Blacks, or the Americans, or the Christians, or whatever group he wanted to slander did he pick on those who simply studied the Middle East? After all, many of those scholars were anything but Zionists! I don't know the answer to that question. Maybe Said felt that to truly smash the rights of Levantine Jews to life, liberty, and property, he'd have to smash truth. And I guess he figured that the best way to attack truth would be to outlaw the right to study it. That would leave Middle Eastern studies in the hands of lying and taunting propagandists and give some chance to get "scholarly" approval for the abolition of human rights in the Levant. That's just my wild guess. Irwin merely says that he can't believe that Said's work was written in good faith.

I would like to see Middle Eastern studies be a scholarly field once again. If I were a few decades younger, I might even want to work in that subject to help that happen. But I now think the first task here has to be to expose and repudiate the barrage of anti-Zionist lies that have become part of the canon offered to many students. And that can't be done by partisans alone. It needs works such as this one, written by those who value truth and want the field to be rescued from those who merely want to use words to fight a tribal war.

Oh yes, the title. In "The Golden Road to Samarkand" by James Elroy Flecker (1884-1915), Ishak says:

"We travel not for trafficking alone;
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned:
For lust of knowing what should not be known
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand."

Obviously, Irwin's point is that the Orientalists were not in their fields primarily to serve as agents of Imperialism, but, almost always, out of genuine love of knowledge.

I recommend this book.

This book is an attempt to discredit the works of Edward Said and rehabilitate "Orientalism" in its broadest sense. Irwin's defense in large measure to show the divisions and disputes within the field in order to show that there never was a united view or a united purpose in it. The sad thing is that in pursing his argument, he airs lots of dirty laundry that isn't exactly complamentary of Orientalism.

He admits for example the sad history of orientalists serving the european colonial enterprise. But with no particular proof he asserts that somehow the cases of overlap of orientalism and imperialism are exceptions or incidental.

The author is also willfully blind of any scholarship that built on or followed Said. Its as if none of that happened and that "evil" Said simply needs to be purged out of existance.

Unfortunatly for the author, the other metter he doesn't catch on to is that this field of study was being politicized long before Said began publishing. The field is today divided between neo-conservatives politician/scholars like Bernard Lewis and the people like Richard Bulliet. Anyone taking up the middle ground is destroyed by both sides.

Irwin Robert for his own reasons has little to say about Bernard Lewis and his modern role as orientalist scholar in service to politicians with an agenda. For those not aware, Lewis has been a consistant cheerleader and intellectual backstop for the disasterous American Enterprise in Iraq. In that role, he has done more harm in the world than Said could have ever dreamed of doing.

Orientialism is a field in decline because changes in travel and in the world over the past several decades has made it obsolete. These countries and scholars from these cultures can tell their own stories and no longer need western academics as intermediaries.

A scholarly field (any scholarly field) cannot survive if it becomes divided into camps gathered around policians. This is what has happened to middle eastern studies and blaming one side or the other as this book does is meaningless.