Culture and Imperialism

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He challenges us to "think" about why we deem it necessary to read what we read, and how we read it. Besides his academic work, he wrote a twice-monthly column for Al-Hayat and Al-Ahram; was a regular contributor to newspapers in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East; and was the music critic for The Nation. In an effort to overthrow the oppressor, so many former colonies just modeled themselves after the occupying powers.

The first part of this book explores imperialism through various works of literature/music (Mansfield Park, Heart of Darkness, and Aida, for example. that much of said's arguments towards the end of the book became deeply uncompelling, especially the halfhearted gestures towards a critique of the university as an institution. Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism employs a “contrapuntal” reading strategy by which he asserts the needs to examine texts from the perspectives of both colonized and colonizer. Said's second best analysis to imperialism, his 'Orientalism' book had covered this topic in different perspective, whoever culture and imperialism contents is all about how in 19 and 20 century the leading imperialist countries Britain and France; the colonisers tried to impose their cultures ideas and will to the colonised India, Africa and Carreabean Islands through not only trade- economic control, and military power, but through literature by imposing sets of code of conduct to the native people as far the language was concerned , and trough Novels ( Conrad, Kipler, Austen, Camus Flaubert ect.Ghazoul places Said’s approach within traditions of Zahirite Koranic interpretation, which emphasized event and context.

His style is extremely challenging, with Faulknerian sentence structures, and a dense, rich vocabulary. He defines imperialism as “thinking about, settling on, controlling land that you do not possess, that is distant, that is lived on and owned by others” ( CI, 7). Now, YMMV on this, especially if you don’t have the misfortune to come from a place that has a violent revolution in its recent past. They are simply examples leading to the bigger picture that Edward Said is gradually revealing before our eyes. Spatiality is central to the ways in which Said identifies the relationship of the texts to imperialist ideologies.Facebook sets this cookie to show relevant advertisements to users by tracking user behaviour across the web, on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin. Second side note: Oddly enough, one of the most significant impacts of this book was to create in me a desire to re-read many of the 19th Century British novels I last read in high school. Readers accustomed to the precision and elegance of Edward Said's analytical prowess will not be disappointed by Culture and Imperialism . That was even written before the post-9/11 hell broke loose, but the gist, especially the North-South divide, unfair trade practices, IMF free market crap, aid and debt traps remain so very, very relevant.