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For Lust Of Knowing: The Orientalists And Their Enemies Paperback – International Edition, February 27, 2007

by Robert Irwin (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 26 ratings
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Robert Irwin’s history of Orientalism leads from Ancient Greece to the present. He shows that, whether making philological comparisons between Arabic and Hebrew, cataloguing the coins of Fatimid Egypt or establishing the basic chronology of Harun al-Rashid’s military campaigns against Byzantium, scholars have been unified not by politics or ideology but by their shared obsession. For Lust of Knowing is an extraordinary, passionate book, both a sustained argument and a brilliant work of original scholarship.
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  1. Print length
    304 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Penguin UK
  4. Publication date
    February 27, 2007
  5. Dimensions
    5.13 x 0.98 x 7.78 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0140289232
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0140289237
  8. See all details
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About the Author

Robert Irwin is a publisher and writer of fiction and non-fiction. His works of non-fiction include The Arabian Nights, Islamic Art, Night & Horses & the Desert and The Alhambra.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin UK (February 27, 2007)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0140289232
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140289237
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.13 x 0.98 x 7.78 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 26 ratings

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Robert Irwin

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4.6 out of 5 stars
26 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Wayne Dynes
5.0 out of 5 stars Definitive guide to Western scholarship on Islam
Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2007
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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.
12 people found this helpful
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Yuri Sobol
4.0 out of 5 stars A Scholarly Attack
Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2012
"For Lust of Knowing" reminds me of one of my favorite books, "The Sumerian Problem," which was one in a series of books examining scholarly controversies. The question in "The Sumerian Problem" was this: Were the first inhabitants of Mesopotamia Semites or Indo-Europeans? What followed was a chronicle of academic discourse that often degenerated into vicious personal attack.
That's why "For Lust of Knowing" reminds me of "The Sumerian Problem." "For Lust of Knowing" is a vehicle for Irwin to attack Edward Said and his book "Orientalism." Irwin sets up his prosecution very carefully with a thorough study of the West's attempts to investigate the East with a focus on Arabs and Islam. On the way, he never lets his readers completely forget that he is heading toward Said. Finally, he attacks.
For those who are not orientalists themselves, this book might not be very interesting. But having lived in the Middle East much of my life, I found this book a good read. I kept telling myself I would put the book down when I became tired of it, but Irwin manages to put something very interesting or terribly amusing in every chapter, if not on every page. So I read the whole book and quite enjoyed it.
7 people found this helpful
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Eleanor Brasfield
5.0 out of 5 stars For Lust of Knowing
Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2009
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I got it in a timely fashion. It was in very good condition; actually looked like it had never been opened.
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KC Tang
4.0 out of 5 stars For the History Part
Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2008
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.
6 people found this helpful
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Martyn A. Oliver
3.0 out of 5 stars The entertaining confusion
Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2006
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.
33 people found this helpful
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W. H. Peck
4.0 out of 5 stars A balanced history of "orientalism"
Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2007
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.
9 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Siddhartha Pratapa
4.0 out of 5 stars Very good
Reviewed in India on May 21, 2019
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Very good book. A European's brilliant apology for the Orientalist tradition and a passable critique of Said's book.
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Cliff McKay
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book!
Reviewed in Canada on June 28, 2015
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This is a side of the story that desperately needs to be told, since it has almost been lost to the rhetoric of Edward Said and his politically correct adherents. To me, the legacy of Marc Aurel Stein epitomizes the entire debate: his critics condemn him for plundering the Dunhuang treasures; his fans admire him for making them available to the world (via the British Museum and its programs) as opposed to being unknown, lost forever during the early 20th-century chaos that was China, or locked up and hidden away, except for a few tourist-caves available to rich tourists in present-day China. Author Robert Irwin has made a mighty contribution to world-wide cultural debates.
One person found this helpful
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eiamjw
5.0 out of 5 stars Timely, entertaining, informative and true
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 3, 2015
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Scholarly yet highly readable, and an important and timely assertion of traditional enlightenment values in the context of the general, widespread and unthinking adoption of the 'orientalism' thesis in academia and beyond.
3 people found this helpful
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Dr. B. E. Kelly
4.0 out of 5 stars ... a very detailed historical review of a subject of great contemporary importance but sadly one that is little understood ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 6, 2016
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This is a very detailed historical review of a subject of great contemporary importance but sadly one that is little understood in the west. Gerard Noonan gives a very fair and comprehensive review above, and this should be consulted first if you are interested in reading this work. For the most part, I found it very absorbing, although it must be stated it covers a very long period and a wide scholarly terrain, and I sometimes felt I was in the desert without a map. The author clearly thought this necessary to do his demolition work on Edward Said, which he does very effectively. I was interested to read that Said, though raised as a Presbyterian (a rare affiliation for an Arab), was an avowed secularist with a hatred for religion, especially Islam, and he was entirely blindsided by the rise of Islamic fundamentalism since the 1970s. All the same, this highly informative book covers a lot more than a refutation of Said's 'Orientalism', as it presents a kaleidoscope of brilliant and often eccentric scholars. The style is very readable and there a good few laugh out loud moments. Islam is of course the presenting issue, as the unifying factor in Arab, Turkish and Persian cultures, but it would have been interesting to read here something as well on the Christian and Jewish minorities who are just as much a part of 'the Orient' and who predate Islam by centuries.
4 people found this helpful
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S. Smith
4.0 out of 5 stars A Useful Antidote
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 25, 2011
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I think this useful and interesting book should be read by anyone with a broad interest in Asian, particularly Middle Eastern history. Most of the book is a description of how Oriental Studies developed in Europe and North America. It is logically set-out, interesting well-written and fully annoted. Although its scope in time and subject matter is very wide, there is no sense that Irwin is superficial, rather that he has mastered the subject. These chapters lead up to a criticism of Said's "Orientalism", which Irwin wisely confines to one chapter.

I read "Orientalism" some years ago and thought it over-generalised and biased. However, as it was the personal view of a literary critic with no claim to be an historian, I found it tolerable. What is less acceptable is its widespread and uncritical use by anthropoligists and social historians writing on India or Northeast Africa, as though a mere reference to Said validated their point.

Irwin rightly attacks this, but I found this chapter on Said's book less interesting than the rest, as constant criticism (however justified) can be monotonous. Irwin's dilema is whether to attack Said in the same vein as Said attacked Orientalists or whether to be more moderate and scholarly. On balance, I think that Irwin is too comabitive and personal. However, his book is a useful antidote to the canonisation of Said's work
8 people found this helpful
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