this collection is indispensible for any reading list dealing even marginally with Orientalism. For students this new reader will be most helpful because it supplies a good selection of readings which will enable students to examine the elements of the modern theory of anti-Orientalism and some of the main criticisms of that theory. The division between Orientalists and anti-Orientalists is ... Read moreas complete as that which formerly obtained between Marxists and Anti-Marxists. It is a compliment to Dr Macfie that he has produced a reader of such balance that it could well be found tolerable by both groups. The arrival of a 'reader', a collection of 'texts' on the subject, seems to draw a line under the fierce debates of the sixties to eighties. The topic becomes a subject for textual study; Alexander Macfie's book provides a painless visit of the battlefields...orientalism is a good topic for a reader since the literature is diverse and dispersed, and Macfie has done a good job. There can be little doubt that a reader covering this debate [on Orientalism] would be of enormous value to a whole variety of courses in several disciplines in many Universities across the English-speaking world, as well as in Europe.
Professor John Mackenzie, Lancaster University this collection is indispensible for any reading list dealing even marginally with Orientalism. For students this new reader will be most helpful because it supplies a good selection of readings which will enable students to examine the elements of the modern theory of anti-Orientalism and some of the main criticisms of that theory. The division between Orientalists and anti-Orientalists is as complete as that which formerly obtained between Marxists and Anti-Marxists. It is a compliment to Dr Macfie that he has produced a reader of such balance that it could well be found tolerable by both groups. The arrival of a 'reader', a collection of 'texts' on the subject, seems to draw a line under the fierce debates of the sixties to eighties. The topic becomes a subject for textual study; Alexander Macfie's book provides a painless visit of the battlefields...orientalism is a good topic for a reader since the literature is diverse and dispersed, and Macfie has done a good job. There can be little doubt that a reader covering this debate [on Orientalism] would be of enormous value to a whole variety of courses in several disciplines in many Universities across the English-speaking world, as well as in Europe. Show Less