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The American-Palestinian scholar [[Edward Said]] argued in his highly influential<ref>It was translated into 36 languages.</ref> book ''Orientalism'' (1978) that Western scholars were so contaminated by their European ideas and preconceptions that they could not deal honestly and fairly with Asian topics. Said focused on the discipline of Oriental Studies in Europe, including philology, linguistics, ethnography, and the interpretation of culture through the discovery and translation of Oriental texts. In particular he focused on how Western scholars treated the [[Middle East]], his own native region where he was a major political activist.  Said concluded that they looked down upon their subjects as inferior to Westerners, and in general backward and in need of European authority and guidance. He repeatedly complained the Orientalists saw the Orient as unchanging and without an internal dynamic; it lacked internal potential for growth, unless it westernized. Said suggested that the repeated image of a static Orient is what made the Orient static with respect to the West.

The American-Palestinian scholar [[Edward Said]] argued in his highly influential<ref>It was translated into 36 languages.</ref> book ''Orientalism'' (1978) that Western scholars were so contaminated by their European ideas and preconceptions that they could not deal honestly and fairly with Asian topics. Said focused on the discipline of Oriental Studies in Europe, including philology, linguistics, ethnography, and the interpretation of culture through the discovery and translation of Oriental texts. In particular he focused on how Western scholars treated the [[Middle East]], his own native region where he was a major political activist.  Said concluded that they looked down upon their subjects as inferior to Westerners, and in general backward and in need of European authority and guidance. He repeatedly complained the Orientalists saw the Orient as unchanging and without an internal dynamic; it lacked internal potential for growth, unless it westernized. Said suggested that the repeated image of a static Orient is what made the Orient static with respect to the West.

Said did not comment on whether anyone could deal honestly and fairly with Asia,<ref>Said was Christian (not Muslim), was educated in British schools in Egypt then at American prep schools, Princeton and Harvard; he spent his entire academic career at C[[olumbia University]] in [[New York City]]; he was active in Palestinian politics.</ref> for he was taking a general postmodern view that complete analysis is never possible, that Orientalism is misguided and uncritically "essentialist' when it assumes there is such as thing as the Orient in the first place.  His argument, however, was phrased as an attack on western specialists, especially  Bernard Lewis, who in turn tried to pick apart his examples, and challenged his basic postmodern epistemology. Said was not an expert on any aspect of Asian history of culture (he was a specialist in English literature from Britain and America), which weakened his arguments with specialists, and led to the criticism that he was as guilty of sweeping stereotypes as the authors he attacked.  As James Clifford noted. Said "sometimes appears to mimic the essentializing discourse it attacks"<ref>James Clifford, "On Orientalism" in his ''The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century ethnography, Literature, and Art.'' 1988 p 262)</ref>

Said did not comment on whether anyone could deal honestly and fairly with Asia,<ref>Said was Christian (not Muslim), was educated in British schools in Egypt then at American prep schools, Princeton and Harvard; he spent his entire academic career at C[[olumbia University]] in [[New York City]]; he was active in Palestinian politics.</ref> for he was taking a general postmodern view that complete analysis is never possible, that Orientalism is misguided and uncritically "essentialist' when it assumes there is such as thing as the Orient in the first place.  His argument, however, was phrased as an attack on western specialists, especially  Bernard Lewis, who in turn tried to pick apart his examples, and challenged his basic postmodern epistemology. Said was not an expert on any aspect of Asian history of culture (he was a specialist in English literature from Britain and America), which weakened his arguments with specialists, and led to the criticism that he was as guilty of sweeping stereotypes as the authors he attacked.  As James Clifford noted. Said "sometimes appears to mimic the essentializing discourse it attacks"<ref>James Clifford, "On Orientalism" in his ''The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century ethnography, Literature, and Art.'' 1988 (p 262)</ref>

In 1995,<ref>Gyan Prakash, "Orientalism Now" ''History and Theory'' (1995)</ref> Gyan Prakash attributed the phenomenal success of ''Orientalism'' to its capacity to unsettle "received categories and modes of understanding":   

In 1995,<ref>Gyan Prakash, "Orientalism Now" ''History and Theory'' (1995)</ref> Gyan Prakash attributed the phenomenal success of ''Orientalism'' to its capacity to unsettle "received categories and modes of understanding":