What is Edward Said's book Orientalism about?

Though the
previous educator's analysis is correct, Said's analysis of "" predates the
Imperialist era of the nineteenth century. In fact, he writes that "Orientalism is
considered to have commenced its formal existence with the decision of the Church Council of
Vienne in 1312" (72). This decision resulted in the formation of language
"chairs" for Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac in Paris, Oxford, Bologna, Avignon, and
Salamanca. Scholars were devoted to the translation and interpretation of canonical texts, but
they were not immune to the biases of their time.

In the introduction, Said
defines Orientalism as "the corporate institution for dealing with the Orientdealing with
it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it
settling it, ruling over it" (26). Thus, Orientalism becomes "a Western style for
dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient" (26).

Said discusses the rigidity of the Orientalist's view of the Middle East by noting that
it is often imbued with "unshakable abstract maxims about the 'civilization' he had
studied" (75). Their research was more committed to validating their positions than to
understanding the intricacies and complexities of the respective regions they studied. As a
result, "Orientalism produced not only a fair amount of exact positive knowledge about the
Orient but also a kind of second-order knowledge . . . the mythology of the mysterious East,
[and] notions of Asian inscrutability" (75). These notions persist even today and are
evident in films, television shows, and news reports that stereotype Middle Eastern people as
fanatical, violent, regressive, and apathetic.