French and British Orientalist expertise differ in kind and political scope

Evidence

Despite its pessimism, there is a positive political message behind its phrases. The gulf between East and West can be modulated, as Cromer and Balfour knew well, by superior Western knowledge and power. Lawrence’s vision is complemented in France by Maurice Barrès’s Une Enquête aux pays du Levant, the record of a journey through the Near Orient in 1914. Like so many works before it, the Enquête is a work of recapitulation whose author not only searches out sources and origins of Western culture in the Orient but also redoes Nerval, Flaubert, and Lamartine in their voyages to the Orient. For Barrès, however, there is an additional political dimension to his journey: he seeks proof, and conclusive evidence, for a constructive French role in the East. Yet the difference between French and British expertise remains: the former manages an actual conjunction of peoples and territory, whereas the latter deals with a realm of spiritual possibility. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 623

Categorization

• XREF: This French-British expertise contrast will map onto later postcolonial distinctions between French assimilation and British indirect rule.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 623