Edward W. Said - Orientalism & other works (6 books)

EDWARD W. SAID (1935-2003) was a Palestinian-American academic, cultural critic, literary theorist, journalist, and public intellectual.

Said is best known for ORIENTALISM (1978), an analysis of the cultural representations that are the bases of Orientalism, a term he redefined to mean the Western study of Eastern cultures and, in general, the framework of how The West perceives and (mis)represents The East. He contended that Orientalist scholarship was, and remains, inextricably tied to the imperialist societies that produced it, which makes much of the work inherently political, servile to power, and therefore intellectually suspect. The book was hugely influential in the humanities, especially in postcolonial studies, literary theory and in literary criticism.

As a public intellectual, Said discussed contemporary politics and culture, literature and music in books, lectures, and articles. He was a tireless advocate for the establishment of a Palestinian state, for equal political and human rights for the Palestinians in Israel, and for increased U.S. political pressure upon Israel to recognize, grant, and respect said rights. Moreover, he also criticized the political and cultural politics of the Arab and Muslim regimes who acted against the interests of their peoples.


All the following are in PDF (except REFLECTIONS ON EXILE, which is in ePub format):

* CULTURE AND IMPERIALISM (Vintage, 1994).

* NATIONALISM, COLONIALISM, AND LITERATURE (University of Minnesota Press, 1999). Co-authored with Terry Eagleton and Fredric Jameson.

* ORIENTALISM (Vintage, 2004). Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition with a new Preface by the author.

* PEACE AND ITS DISCONTENTS: Essays on Palestine in the Middle East Peace Process (Vintage, 1996).

* REFLECTIONS ON EXILE & OTHER LITERARY AND CULTURAL ESSAYS (Granta, 2001). [ePub -- * courtesy of livhre *]

* REPRESENTATIONS OF THE INTELLECTUAL: The 1993 Reith Lectures (Pantheon, 1994).


==> For an updated and larger collection of Said's work, click here.