Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

While the 16 years that have passed since the first edition of this book hit the stands have been marked by an increase in sensitivity toward many ethnic, racial, and sexual minorities, the easy acceptance of stereotypes and prejudices in the portrayal, depiction of, and reporting about Islamic peoples has remained largely constant. In this updated version of this rigorous but engaging volume Edward Said looks at how American popular media has used and perpetuated a narrow and unfavorable image of Islamic peoples, and how this has prevented understanding while providing a fictitious common enemy for the diverse American populace. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

... Professor Said is adept at holding a mirror up to American attitudes toward Islam.... [He] skillfully traces the origins of American misinformation about Islam to the way that Orientalist scholarship is financed and organized in this country. And finally he pleads eloquently for the instrumentality of all historical knowledge and the needs of all scholars to be aware of their objectives in order to acquire that knowledge usefully. This plea amounts to a prescription for cultural self-awareness that will be wasted on none of us. -- The New York Times Book Review, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; Revised edition (March 11, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679758909
• ISBN-13: 978-0679758907
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #138,368 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading, January 16, 2002

By	"bluemamma" (San Luis Obispo, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This is one of the most intelligent and thought-provoking books I've ever read. The gist of Said's argument is that academic studies of the Muslim world are (like all academic studies) influenced by the culture that produces them. Because the first Westerners to study Islamic culture came from colonial powers, they tended to view things through colonialist, ethnocentric eyes. Although the United States has never had colonial ambitions in the Middle East, we've inherited many of those European attitudes. More importantly, because Middle Eastern studies in American universities lead so many people into careers as government consultants, or oil company employees (and because so much of the funding comes from government and oil companies), those studies usually do not focus on Muslim culture as something of interest and value in and of itself, but are concerned rather with how it relates to American power and business interests. We are not concerned, in other words, with how an institution in an Islamic country effects the local people, but only with whether it makes them more or less pro-American.

According to Said, American journalists, who tend not to know the languages, or much about the culture of the places they report from, rely on such slanted academic studies for their understanding of the Islamic world, and allow it to color almost everything they write. As a result, reporting from Islamic countries is not only shallow, but often filled with insults and ethnic slurs that no editor would accept if the reporter were writing about any other group of people.

I suppose the best way to judge a book like this is to test its thesis in the real world -- and even before I finished reading the whole thing, I realized how much more aware I was of the underlying bias and ethnocentrism in newspaper and magazine articles about the Middle East. I wasn't searching for that prejudice, but after reading Said, I could not miss the condescension in the articles, and the absence of positive articles. Most of all, I realized how very little information was actually contained in the articles I read. It's not just that Muslims are being slurred. As citizens, we're being cheated out of information we need to make informed decisions. This book should be required reading for every editor, every foreign correspondent, every commentator on foreign policy, and every American citizen.

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AN EXCELLENT BOOK -> UNCOVERING HIDDEN AGENDAS, August 18, 1997

By A Customer

FINALLY!! NOW HERE'S A BOOK THAT PORTRAYS THE TRUTH...I recommend this book to anyone who has ever felt the media's portrayal of Islam and Muslims was anywhere near reality. This book takes on the long-feared task of exposing American media agendas and its sources, and how this portrayal has hurt and been totally unfair to the Second Largest Religion in the World where more than a billion Muslims live and practice a religion that has become the target of media distortion and the tool for American foreign policy and hidden agendas. An expose' of multibillion dollar campaigns to distort the image of a civilized, down-to-earth, honest religion, this book gives the real scoop on the high moral values of Muslim people, and their sincerety, and the media's distortion of them as terrorists and war-criminals.A must read for all political analysts

47 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CALLING ALL JOURNALISTS..., July 21, 1999

By A Customer

This book should be read by all journalists who write anything about Islam and Muslims, and everyone who reads the foreign news section of the newspaper. Succinct, powerful, and poignant, Said, himself not a Muslim, exhibits his customary insight as he attempts to destroy the horrific portrayal of the world's fastest growing and second-largest religion by the American media.

New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post--stop publishing this trash about Islam that you call journalism and feeding the entertainment craze that evokes memories of Rambo-esque American bravery against fanatics, terrorists, and extremists. Life is not an action movie with a good guy and a bad guy, like you would want the American public to believe.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to get past the excessively simplistic, racist, anti-Muslim, anti-Islam, and anti-Arab (and thereby, anti-Semitic as well--no, Jews aren't the only, or even the most numerous Semites, Arabs are Semites, too...) views so completely represented by the American media.

My advice to those who want to learn about the Middle East, Islam, and Muslims in general--DON'T believe what you read in newspapers or in books by journalists (they represent a tiny fraction of what's actually going on those parts of the world, and even that is pseudo-intellectual rubbish). Read bona fide history books that have various viewpoints--American and non-American, Muslim and non-Muslim. And if you do happen to read the newspapers, keep a copy of Said's book next to you to help you expose the media's constant distortions.