Orientalism rose as colonial-control ideology under British capitalist imperialism

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 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In the same period as the construction of divided colonial capitals, a similar separation was being made on a global scale, in the form of a cultural and historical ‘break’ dividing the modern West, as the place of order, reason, and power, from the outside world it was in the process of colonising and seeking to control. ‘As long as we know anything that deserves the name of history’, declared the President of the International Congress of Orientalists held in London in 1892, ‘that break exists.’ Professor Tylor, in his inaugural address as the President of the Congress’s new Anthropological Section, explained more precisely that ‘in the large definition adopted by this congress, the Oriental world reaches its extreme limits. It embraces the continent of Asia, stretching through Egypt over Africa, and into Europe over Turkey and Greece …’ The proceedings of the Congress were reported in the local periodical press in Egypt. Professor Tylor’s definition of the Orient was reproduced in full, and an astonished Egyptian editor added his comment: ‘It is as if the world were divided in two.’ — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 517 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Institutional Orientalism, not all Orientalist scholarship, served colonial power; British, French, then American Orientalism follows the rise and fall of colonial empires — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 81; Postwar postcolonial critiques transformed Orientalism’s meaning from scholarship into ideology of empire (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• British, French, then American Orientalism follows the rise and fall of colonial empires #corroborates (0.90) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 81
• Western orientalism constructed a global civilizational break that served colonial rule #expands (0.85) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 517
• Orientalism’s paradigms confirm rather than contest imperial domination #corroborates (0.85)
• Postcolonial Orientalism preserved colonialist residues under altered forms of power. #expands (0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 467
• Orientalism is a political doctrine arising from Western dominance #corroborates (0.80)
• American empire inherited and reformulated European Orientalism after World War II #expands (0.80) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 724
• Postwar postcolonial critiques transformed Orientalism’s meaning from scholarship into ideology of empire #expands (0.75)