Culture and Imperialism

Rating:
Summary: An engaging, but not entirely successful, literary study
Review: ....

So, what is this book about? Well, contrary to what some of the "reviews" below assume, it's not about contemporary Middle East politics, or media coverage thereof, or anything even remotely like that. It's about literature-- European literature to be specific.

Essentially, Said proposes to look at what he calls "Imperialism" in European literature. (Although the title is "Culture and Imperialism" and while he does discuss one opera, he's not really concerned with culture or art, more broadly. He's really talking about literature here-- and especially novels. In truth, "Literature and Imperialism" would be a more accurate title.

So, what is imperialism, as Said uses it here? It is, he explains, an ideology-- a set of assumptions-- that justifies, supports, and legitimates the conquest, control, and domination of lands that are inhabited by other people, who speak different languages and have other traditions. Imperialism, as an ideology, is thus distinct from "Colonialism", which is the actual, real, activity of conquering, controling, and domination other lands and people. Imperialism is, Said might say, the intellectual/cultural/ideological base that makes an otherwise morally dubious project of colonialism (conquering and ruling over others) seem acceptable, even justifiable.

Essentially, Said traces the role that imperialism (as defineed above) plays in a host of European literary works, focussing on the past two centuries. After his theoretical/methodological introduction, each chapter is devoted to the discussion of a single literary work (or in some cases, multiple works by the same author), illuminating its imperialist qualities. In doing so, he chooses only truly great literary works by the biggest and best names, and he also leaves a side a fewer mediocre authors who might have been obvious targets (like Kipling). Said's reason for doing this, I believe, is twofold: First, I think, is the simple fact that he, like all true lovers of literature, prefers to discuss works that are truly great on their own right, rather than ones that are merely mediocre but happen to prove his point. Secondly, Said wants to show that the imperialist ideologies he's talking about weren't just a peripheral sidenote in European culture-- but that they were part and parcel of its finest artistic achievements. He does this, not as some of his critics might suppose, to indict European culture or to question the greatness of any of these texts. Quite the contrary, I think, Said is concerned with showing how important and central this subject is to the history of European literature.

The only problem is that a lot of the individual chapters (which are more or less case studies of specific works/authors) seem unsuccessful. Obviously this is not the case in his chapters on Conrad, or on Verdi's "Aida", both of which have clear and undeniable imperial/colonial elements to them. However, his discussion of Jane Austin's works (for example), seems quite unconvincing. Yes, there is the brief moment in one novel where the family patriarch announces that he is leaving to look after some of the family's "sugar interests" in the Caribbean.... but that's the closest one can get to an "imperialist moment" in Austin. Said does, of course, acknowledge that it's not much-- and he does show how the father's absence enables many of the other events in the novel to transpire-- but it seems a bit forced. Even the chapter on Verdi falls short a couple of times because Said seems to ignore the fact that, in many ways, Aida was an explicitly *anti-colonialist* opera that was most often interpreted as a quasi allegory *criticizing* Italian intervention in East Africa. (Paul Robinson actually has a great chapter on this subject in his book, "Opera and Ideas").

Still, in spite of its faults, and in spite of the fact that it doesn't establish its claim that "imperialism is the central theme" of European literature in the 19th century, "Culture and Imperialism" is a worthwile book to read. While Said may overstate his case, he's definitely on to something important, and at the very least, he offers new and fresh perspectives of many great literary works that, in the end, go to show just how wonderfully complex, insightful, and meaningful those works are, both in and of themselves, and to the history of literature and ideas as a whole. (Oh yes, I suppose I should add that, in contrast to many contemporary literary critics, Said can write well, and clearly. Additionally, he's even retreated from the Foucauldian basis of some of his earlier work, and "Culture and Imperialism" has very much the feel of a good ol' fashioned piece of literary criticism, rather than something that bows to the current thoretical academic trends). Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Austen, Conrad, Yeats, Camus....the political story
Review: Culture and Imperialism deals with western literature primarily. That and an Italian opera. Austen, Conrad, Yeats, Camus are each given considerable attention as especially pertinent examples of how culture has either collaborated with or attempted to counteract the influence of colonialism. Austen is the least obvious choice and perhaps the least satisfying part of the book. To many the debate about colonialism was initiated(at least in literature)with the publication of Heart of Darkness. That work has been ably analyzed by many Conrad scholars, Said does not really challenge existing scholarship but he expresses his dissappointment that Conrad did not seem capable of imagining a political alternative to colonialism. I think it is important to point out that there were Englishman at the time of the writing of Heart of Darkness that were politically outspoken against colonialism (Roger Casement)as well as opponents to colonialism as far back as 1787(Edmund Burke). My point being that Conrad was a novelist and he is describing the physical realities of colonialism that he saw firsthand and he obviously saw it as a horrendous and inhumane affair. Others were more suited than he to make the case against colonialism in the courts. Conrad made his case in a book.
Said examines Yeats in the context of Irelands national struggle for independence. Yeats explored Irelands past and integrated its particularly Irish mythology into his poems. By doing so he reconnected Ireland to its own past and a sense of its own identity. This is perhaps one of the more satisfying sections of the book illustrating plainly that one of the ways an empire maintains control over a colony is by divorcing it form its own past and history.
Camus was a figure at odds with his times. Most of his contemporaries disagreed with him about Algeria. He imagined an Algeria that would be ruled jointly by both the French and the Algerians which is not too surprising given the fact that Camus was himself a Frenchmen who spent his childhood in Algeria. I think Camus is a fascinating and perhaps conflicted figure and perhaps a better author(where conflict does not always have to be resolved) than political thinker. He wanted compromise and consolodation for both the nation and himself. Said however doesn't approach Camus in this way, in fact, he doesn't seem sympathetic at all with the autobiographic element in Camus' work which he finds to have anti-Arab elements in it. I don't agree with that. He grew up poor and fatherless and he loved the North African landscape to which he remained attached his whole life. His sympathies were with the poor Bedouins and he did not trust either the communist left nor the nationalist movements of the right. Any interpretation of Camus' work which focuses exculsively on the political is going to be a narrow one and discount all those unresolved elements that make his work so confounding and so fascinating.
The figures discussed here are all interesting but Saids approach which focuses exculsively on extracting the political import of each author is not in my opinion the best possible approach for these authors. Literary work is never reducible to a few political principles & polotics in literary works is never without ambiguity and irony. Which means extracting a discernable political postion from a complex work is not really possible nor really to be desired. Art asks questions which is what Said is good at too. I think Said wants art to be more specifically political than it often is so his natural tendency is to make as much as he can out of whatever evidence he finds and build arguments by overloading what is sometimes pretty scant evidence with disproportionate significance. As a result you get lopsided views of these authors. So if you want a balanced assessment of any of these authors Said is not your man and this is not your book.

Rating:
Summary: The persecution of Christians?
Review: Denying the suffering of Christians under Moslem rule is what Said wants the West to do. The denial of Christian suffering by Christians who lived among Moslems is a phenomenon that is always overlooked. As Christians who live in Egypt, neither Said nor I could marry a Moslem woman unless we convert to Islam; as Christians neither Said nor I would be allowed entrance to some Arab cities; as Christians, neither Said nor I would be allowed to build a church without permission from the President of Egypt. Why is Said quiet about that?

Rating:
Summary: Denying the suffering of Christians
Review: Denying the suffering of Christians under Moslem rule is what Said wants the West to do. The denial of Christian suffering by Christians who lived among Moslems is a phenomenon that is always overlooked. As Christians who live in Egypt, neither Said nor I could marry a Moslem woman unless we convert to Islam; as Christians neither Said nor I would be allowed entrance to some Arab cities; as Christians, neither Said nor I would be allowed to build a church without permission from the President of Egypt. Why is Said quiet about that?

Rating:
Summary: Eddie strikes again!
Review: Eddie Said was one of the best and brightest of the younger third world intellectuals -- and, at his best, up there with the big boys, even those from an English background. He takes on some important subjects here -- and, for the most part, scores well, espcially considering his cheesy background. But one wishes he had the dignity, the daring and the sheer class of V.S. Naipaul, who remains the single most important thinker on problems of the perennially "developing" nations.

Rating:
Summary: A Magisterial Study
Review: Edward Said has outdone himself in this elegant and exceptionally brilliant work. There is no question that Said ranks among the great figures of the humanist tradition. His towering scholarship is truly intimidating, so profoundly vast in scope and acute in perception is his treatment of that most inviolable of subjects - Western imperialism.

Moving beyond his celebrated and groundbreaking classic, Orientalism, Said advances another, equally groundbreaking thesis in Culture and Imperialism. The basic point is surprisingly, even shockingly, simple: literature must be read and interpreted in its fullest context. To properly appreciate a novel, particularly a canonical classic whose origins are now foreign to us, it is imperative to examine the social, cultural, and political environment that gave shape to that novel. A "contrapuntal" reading (a term Said skillfully employs from the lingo of musical composition) permits a richer and much more faithful interpretation than what has hitherto been orthodox practice. We have become accustomed to reading the classics without paying much attention, if any at all, to certain critical contextual factors that might have greatly impacted its writing. And this blinded reading has only been to our aesthetic detriment. However, a contextual reading, of the sort Said so convincingly proposes, unearths hitherto occluded insights, perspectives, and interpretations, thereby greatly enriching our appreciation of the novel in the end.

This interpretive approach ties into his other major theme, which is the symbiosis of culture and imperialism. It may surprise us to think that imperialism is not the mere physical appropriation and economic exploitation of foreign territories. We should know from common sense that imperialism is much more than that. And yet, it often escapes us. What is it that imbues a nation with the arrogance, the collective sense of vanity, the conviction of moral and cultural superiority, to assume that it has the *right* to invade a foreign territory and dominate over another people? The English novelist and travel writer Joseph Conrad answered that question in his Heart of Darkness, in lines Said appropriately chose for the opening of his book:

"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea - something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to."

Thus, long before Said, Conrad himself, a canonical novelist, did us the favor of admitting the drive behind imperialism - it's an idea. What precisely does such an idea entail? How is it propagated? How does it inform culture? These questions are explored in great and disturbing detail by Said, whose command of history, both orthodox and oppositional, unveils for us the ugliness, the viciousness behind the idea of imperialism. Lest we be skeptical of Said's intentions, consider the following remark made in 1910 by Jules Harmand, French advocate of colonialism:

"It is necessary, then, to accept as a principle and point of departure the fact that there is a hierarchy of races and civilizations, and that we belong to the superior race and civilization, still recognizing that, while superiority confers rights, it imposes strict obligations in return. The basic legitimation of conquest over native peoples is the conviction of our superiority, not merely our mechanical, economic, and military superiority, but our moral superiority. Our dignity rests on that quality, and it underlies our right to direct the rest of humanity. Material power is nothing but a means to that end."

Or, consider this benign remark by the English philosopher Thomas Carlyle, in a pamphlet tastefully entitled, "The Nigger Question":

"No: the gods wish besides pumpkins, that spices and valuable products be grown in their West Indies; this much they have declared in so making the West Indies: infinitely more they wish, that industrious men occupy their West Indies, not indolent two-legged cattle however 'happy' over their abundant pumpkins! Both these things, we may be assured, the immortal gods have decided upon, passed their eternal Act of Parliament for: and both of them, though all terrestrial Parliaments and entities oppose it to the death, shall be done. Quashee, if he will not help in bringing-out the spices will get himself made a slave again (which state will be a little less ugly than his present one), and with beneficent whip, since other methods avail not, will be compelled to work."

Such are the imperial ideas, admitted by Conrad and greatly expounded upon by the scholarly Said. Perhaps not surprisingly, Said finds something objectionable in the racist premises of imperialism. He has the audacity to suggest that we should take account of the ugly facts of imperialism when reading novels that were written in the imperial context. Even more audaciously, he insists that we should start paying attention to the victims of imperialism, their hitherto unheard voices (what Bill Ashcroft has described as "the empire writing back") - a growing corpus of literature from the Third World, currently being spearheaded by such writers as Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Naguib Mahfouz, and Salman Rushdie. Understandably, the guardians of Western cultural heritage are not going to take a liking to Said's dangerously subversive ideas, for reasons that are perhaps best explained by the attitudes of Harmand and Carlyle themselves.

In summary, Culture and Imperialism is a magisterial work, a necessary volume for the bookshelves of every student of history and culture. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

"And no race possesses the monopoly of beauty, of intelligence, of force, and there is a place for all at the rendezvous of victory." - Aimee Cesaire

Rating:
Summary: Unconvincing
Review: Edward W. Said teaches comparative literature at Columbia University. A few years ago, he made news when a published photograph of Professor Said hurling a stone at Israeli soldiers -- a symbolic act of Palestinian solidarity and protest, he later claimed -- caused embarrassment to his employer. Said is a man of learning and strong views. Unfortunately, the learning is largely absent from this attenuated book written in a convoluted style, even as the views come through all too clearly: the author despises imperialism.

"We need a different and innovative paradigm for humanistic research," he writes (312). Perhaps so. Yet Said's suggested paradigm has little to do with research and even less to do with the humanities. Nor is it particularly new or different. Like a Victorian interpreter of Zeitgeists, he reduces literature (which, together with art and music, he calls "culture") to a pale reflection of (or, more tantalizingly, "counterpoint" to) the perceived political wisdom of its time. Thus, if the British pursued imperial designs on the Caribbean in the first decades of the nineteenth century, Jane Austen's fiction must either reflect or react to that spirit or, at worst, purposely ignore it, and it is the duty of the critic, Said maintains over and over, to determine which. Such a paradigm, I believe, trivializes the study of literature and adds nothing to the study of imperialism. One might as well research the history of baseball by its reflection in baseball cards, or the psychology of force by its reflection in action comic books.

For all its length, Culture and Imperialism is an unconvincing synthesis and a too cursory analysis of Austen, Conrad, Dickens, Verdi, Rushdie, and Said's other primary sources.

Rating:
Summary: A fine reference
Review: Edward W.Said's Culture and Imperialism explores seemingly difficult areas of postcolonial discourse with consummate ease, carefully and clearly definining terms and writing an utterly convincing piece. As with all of his texts, Culture and Imperialism's main strength is in the conviction of the writer as he puts forward his claims. An invaluable tool for those approaching Postcolonialism, Culture and Imperialism is quite possibly the most illuminating piece of writing I have considered. A fine text, and one of immeasurable usefulness.

Rating:
Summary: A fine reference
Review: Edwars W.Said's Culture and Imperialism explores seemingly difficult areas of postcolonial discourse with consummate ease, carefully and clearly definining terms and writing an utterly convincing piece. As with all of his texts, Culture and Imperialism's main strength is in the conviction of the writer as he puts forward his claims. An invaluable tool for those approaching Postcolonialism, Culture and Imperialism is quite possibly the most illuminating piece of writing I have considered. A fine text, and one if immesurable usefulness.

Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: I found this book riveting--provocative, insightful, and thankfully, free of JARGON. A fresh, erudite, yet luckily, stuffy-free work.