British, French, then American Orientalism follows the rise and fall of colonial empires

Evidence

Yet my discussion of that domination and systematic interest does not do justice to (a) the important contributions to Orientalism of Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, and Portugal and (b) the fact that one of the important impulses toward the study of the Orient in the eighteenth century was the revolution in Biblical studies stimulated by such variously interesting pioneers as Bishop Lowth, Eichhorn, Herder, and Michaelis. In the first place, I had to focus rigorously upon the British-French and later the American material because it seemed inescapably true not only that Britain and France were the pioneer nations in the Orient and in Oriental studies, but that these vanguard positions were held by virtue of the two greatest colonial networks in pre-twentieth-century history; the American Oriental position since World War II has fit—I think, quite self-consciously—in the places excavated by the two earlier European powers. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 81

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the standard critical-theory claim that intellectual disciplines track imperial power structures — foreshadows how later Islamophobia readings trace similar Euro-American epistemic dominance. — connects to: Orientalism rose as colonial-control ideology under British capitalist imperialism; Empire shifting to the US carried Orientalist scholars across the Atlantic with it
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 81