State intelligence analysts published sweeping claims about entire Arab populations on minimal sourcing.

Evidence

Another illustration dovetails neatly—perhaps too neatly—with Kissinger’s analysis. In its February 1972 issue, the American Journal of Psychiatry printed an essay by Harold W. Glidden, who is identified as a retired member of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, United States Department of State; the essay’s title (“The Arab World”), its tone, and its content argue a highly characteristic Orientalist bent of mind. Thus for his four-page, double-columned psychological portrait of over 100 million people, considered for a period of 1,300 years, Glidden cites exactly four sources for his views: a recent book on Tripoli, one issue of the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, the periodical Oriente Moderno, and a book by Majid Khadduri, a well-known Orientalist. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 144

Categorization

• XREF: Exemplifies how power (state intelligence) authorizes essentialist knowledge claims — the Foucault/Orientalism power-knowledge nexus the reader is scaffolding for Islamophobia readings.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 144