Said criticized scholars whose works he had not read

Evidence

The conviction grows that he had never actually read Gobineau or Humboldt. And his acquaintance with Renan was of the slightest. The names of Renan and Gobineau come up many times in the book, but their ideas are not analysed or criticized in any detail. Their importance is something that is taken as a given, rather than as something that badly needs to be proved. — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 529

Categorization

• SHARE: Worth sending to any critic or scholar of Orientalism — the claim that the book’s most-cited villains were never actually read is a sharp, checkable accusation.

Related

• Renan dismissed de Sacy as orthodox and lacking critical insight (similarity 0.81)