Said invented a nonexistent school of Cluniac Orientalists

Evidence

Orientalism has the look of a book written in a hurry. It is repetitious and contains lots of factual mistakes. Said refers to ‘Peter the Venerable and other Cluniac Orientalists’. Which other Cluniac Orientalists? It would be interesting to know their names. (But, of course, the idea that there was a whole school of Cluniac Orientalists is absurd. Peter the Venerable was on his own.) — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 509

Categorization

• SHARE: A specific, light error worth sending to anyone who reads or teaches Said.

Related

• Orientalism’s cult following grew among nonspecialists despite no corrections to its errors (similarity 0.82)
• Said never corrected factual errors in Orientalism and refused to concede points (similarity 0.81)
• Orientalist training typically converted initial fascination into a debunking project (similarity 0.78)
• The word ‘Oriental’ alone invoked a fixed, unchallengeable body of knowledge (similarity 0.78)