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“The Case of Orientalism”

Hitchens’ review of Robert Irwin’s Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and its Discontents. Hitchens sums it up by writing “Though this book is an extraordinarily attractive short introduction to the different national schools of Orientalism, and to the various scholars who labored to make Eastern philology and philosophy more accessible, its chief interest to the lay reader lies in its consideration of Orientalism as a study of Islam.” It might be useful to define Orientalism – the patronizing study of the Middle Eastern and Eastern Cultures by western scholars. Of course, even the terms “Middle East” and “Far East” are patronizing.

Great "orientalist" cover of a 1932 Pulp magazine:

Great quote from Irwin about one orientalist “scholar” as having “the kind of beautiful mind that could see patterns where none existed”

New Learning: Alfred Thayer Mahan is the son of West Point military strategist Dennis Hart Mahan (who trained most of the officers on both sides of the US Civil War). He was born at West Point, named for the father of West Point (Sylvanus Thayer) but attended the Naval Academy at Annapolis. He coined the term “Middle East.”

Thayer Hall, West Point

New Word: In a nod to extreme linguistic snobbery, Hitchens writes, “In contradistinction, or at any rate by contrast…” I assume this is meant, not to impress us that he knows the difference, but to “school us” in the difference.