Culture and Imperialism [Paperback]

Said has done a magnificent job of cateloguing the various ways that European authors, principally British and French, have acquiesced in, reinforced or justified imperialism.

The trouble is that this is almost universally true of most literature for most times and places for most of human history.

Historically, literature has been the product of a literate class, with both the education and leisure to write.

These have almost always occured at the hearts of power structures or nexus, such as kingdoms or empires, commanding both the resources, human and material, and the traditions and information out of which literature has usually, if not always, been composed (Said himself addresses the traditional origins of literature, quoting Elliot).

Homer wrote at the heart of a Hellenic colonial community; the Hebrew bible was composed of court records and redacted in the imperial Babylon that permitted the Jewish exiles to restore their state; the New Testament was composed or redacted, chiefly in Alexandria and Rome and, along with most Patristic literature assumes the right of Rome to rule and often censures the Jews for their rebelliousness; the Quran is the pamphlet for Jihad, the conquest of unbelievers by believers or Arab Islamic imperialism, itself modelled on the Israelite conquest of Canaan.

Said undermines his otherwise excellent thesis by making s qualitative distinction between modern European Christian and postChristian empires, and those that preceded them, by they Arab or Turkish Islamic, classical pagan or Christian.

I think this a little problematical.

Surely the difference between modern and ancient imperialism is one of degree, not kind?

Surely the urge to acquire land and resources, human and material, by force is, in at least some sense, common to all?

Historically, the literature produced in all these structures, has reflected their imperial situation.

Human nature has rarely refused the benefits that empire accrues, and this is as true for the ancient Athenian tragedians and comics as for Austen or Dickens.

The Arabian nights assumes imperial power structures (Scheherezade is a queen, for heaven's sake!).

The mercantile adventures of Sinbad the sailor assume a right to sail and trade in a wider Islamic empire: surely Dombey and Son, whom Said singles out for this assumption, are not alone in this.

Similarly, Aristotle's Politics assume and justify an inherent Hellenic right to rule the world and, as the traditional tutor of Alexander the great, Aristotle could be said to have played his part in establishing the 'legitimacy' of the Hellenistic empire (including, ultimately, the province of Syria Palaestina, the origin of Said's native 'Palestine').

Indeed, some of Aristotle's arguments later appear in Islamic literature.

Said leaves himself open to the charge of applying a universal principle in a highly selective and partisan manner.

To pursue his own agenda, Pro Palestinian Arab and culturally Islamic, he has criticised modern European literature but left the culture of, say, imperial Islam unscathed.

His work is undoubtedly worth reading as a catelogue of the many evils of modern European empires committed against subject non Europeans.

It is also, as far as I am any judge, a comprehensive survey of postimperial and postcolonial indigenous literary and historiographical responses to empire and its ravages.

Said's partisanship is understandable.

Yet, one cannot help but feel, as a work of universal merit, it is flawed and one sided.