Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and Its Discontents | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Irwin
Publisher: Overlook TP
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 285496
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 6 x 1.5
ISBN: 1590200179
Dewey Decimal Number: 297
EAN: 9781590200179
ASIN: 1590200179
Publication Date: March 25, 2008
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Product Description
The publication of Edward Said's hugely influential Orientalism in 1981 called into question the entire history of the Western study of Islamic culture. Said's book condemned his scholarly tradition as an institution that presented inaccurate and demeaning representations of Islamic peoples, and came to dominate academic thinking. But what is Orientalism, who were the Orientalists, and how did Western scholars of Islamic culture become known as agents of European imperialism? In this groundbreaking history, Robert Irwin answers these questions with the colorful story of the motley crew of the intellectuals and eccentrics who bridged the gap between the Islamic world and the West. By analyzing such diverse sources as Ancient Greek perceptions of the Persians, a portrait of the first Western European translators of Arabic, and the contemporary Muslim world's perception of the Western study of Islam, Irwin affirms the value of the Orientalists' legacy. Dangerous Knowledge is an enthralling history, a bold argument, and an urgent redress of our conceptions about the relationship between the East and the West.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Yet Another Expose of Said's Villany and Feeble Mindedness July 29, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
 A political feud with Edward Said April 8, 2007
13 out of 37 found this review helpful
This book is an extension of a political feud thats been going on in academic circles since Edward Said published his book "orientalism". As a short summary, that book contended that many western scholars in their studies of the other cultures had both gotten things wrong and served as an important extension of the european imperial/colonial governments who used to rule large parts of the world.
The feud actually has little to do with actual scholarship. In some sense, its an extension of the wars in the middle east. Said was Palestinian. Harsh lines were drawn on both sides and whole dispute is almost completely political. Ironically, the almost histerical tone of attacks on Said did more to spread his ideas than he himself did. As in many of these cases, a response was not sufficent. It had to be proved that he was a criminal liar whose book consisted of fabrications. The book and its ideas had to be banished from any serious discussion. At times it seemed that the concern was really over someone from the middle east speaking about it from an academic point of view rather than europeans or Americans.
And so Robert Irwin decided to ride to the defense of Orientalism in this book. His argument is basically that Orientialism is and always has been above politics. And that the people in the field didn't agree with each other enough to have an ideology as Said suggested. Problem is that Irwin himself digs up all kinds of material that goes counter to his own arguments. For example, he shows all kinds of scholars who did serve the ends of empire and government. But he tells us without proof that they are just exceptions in a sea of scholars with unquestionable motives. It didn't quite convince me.
For his own reasons, Irwin chooses not to engage in debate with Said. As with many Orientalists, he chooses the route of avoiding debate of the subject by a direct attack on the credibility of Said and his work. This can work in some cases (See Black Athena), but it requires that the errors and misrepresentations are such that the entire premise of the work of the false. Irwin doesn't reach anywhere close to that standard. In fact, his own analysis of orientialism tends to support Said's case. Its also a very difficult thing to discredit analysis of a field of study.
The field of "orientalism" as Robert Irwin and many others had known it is simply obsolete. Travel and computers have changed the world. There isn't a need anymore for western scholars to interprate for Americans or Europeans for that matter what "orientals" are like. There are large english-speaking academic communities made up of people from those cultures both in those countries and in the west. If we want to know about Iraqi culture/history for example, its much better to talk to an Iraqi professor from the culture rather than having an "orientalist" like Bernard Lewis offer outsider theories on what Iraqis might be like.
More generally, the time of outsider academic analysis of cultures and political systems is almost over. The debate over orientalism is largely meaningless these days. Its just a leftover extension of the wars of the middle east.
 Good Counter Polemic January 28, 2007
29 out of 36 found this review helpful
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.
The Discontents are Dull January 11, 2007
9 out of 16 found this review helpful
"Dangerous Knowledge" should serve as the standard work about those often quirky scholars in the West who pursued the difficult and mostly little regarded study of the languages and civilizations of the Middle East. However, a history of scholars is unfortunately less interesting than the history itself. "Dangerous Knowledge" seems to have been written largely for an opportunity to refut and criticize the works of the late Edward Said, who famously charged most Western scholarship as tainted by racist and imperialist attitudes. Author Robert Irwin makes a good case that this blanket condemnation is both wrong and unscholarly, and a disservice to our efforts to come to grips with problems that have suddenly become crucial.
Discredited Anecdotal Approach! December 14, 2006
27 out of 85 found this review helpful
Like many other Orientalists, Irwin is bitterly obssessed with Edward Said and this book is dedicated to refuting Orientalism, the late thinker's classic masterpiece. Had Irwin read Said properly though, he would have not written this long celebration of supposedly disinterested scholarship highlighting orientalist academic achievements etc... To begin with, and to state a point that is a given in the humanities these days, Orientalism for Said was not just an academic discipline (which is all what Irwin talks about) but was a style of constructing and approaching the "Orient" as being inherently different from the "Occident" and as being static, unchanging, inferior. As such Said uses the term Orientalism with reference to literary figures such as Flaubert, philosophers such as Marx along with low grade Orientalists such as Bernard Lewis. He was not interested in writting a history of Oriental Studies. What he was concerned with was an analysis of the system of cultural representation and imaginative geography that was Orientalism in its political, academic, artisitc, and literary forms. His critque of Orientalism was not based on the idea that Oriental Studies made no academic contributions; he rather tackles the assumptions that inform it (along with other realms of cultural production such as literature) and its relationship with its imperial context etc... Ignoring Said's analysis, Irwin ends up with a weak Orientalist critique and a trite anecdotal study that has very little relevance to contemporary scholarship. In many ways this book illustrates rather than refutes Said's points (especially Said's critique of cults of specialists that refuse to recognise their contextual connections with the surrounding world)!
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