First UK edition. 8vo. xxxii, 444 pp. Original brown cloth, spine lettered in gilt dust jacket (just a hint of faint spotting to top-edge of text-block, contents otherwise clean and unmarked; a near fine copy). London, Chatto & Windus, 1993.
A collection of essays that extends Said's powerful deconstruction of the so-called orient-versus-occident distinction first outlined in Said's seminal work Orientalism (1978). Said developed an analysis of the historical process of 'Western' cultural imperialism and its discursive construction of 'The East' - designating the societies and cultures of Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East - in terms of radical 'Otherness' and inferiority, a hegemonic strategy that served, and continues to serve, to validate and perpetuate 'Western' power.
