Translation can convey a foreign civilization’s self-view to outside readers.

Evidence

In most of them my purpose was to offer the student or other reader some insight into how Middle Eastern history looks as seen through Middle Eastern eyes. Occasionally, I attempted to give the reader of English some experience, however diminished, of the pleasures of Middle Eastern literature. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 88

Categorization

• SEED: An essay angle: translation as the historian’s tool for conveying an alien civilization’s self-perception rather than merely its facts.