The issue of imperialism and colonialism looms large for Said and Irwin. For Said, Orientalism is both conceptually imperialist and historically a tool for imper-ialist adventures, especially by the French and British, who, Irwin counters, were vastly overrepresented in Orientalism.
The leading Orientalists of the 19th and early 20th century were Germans, but Germany had no imperial designs in the Middle East or Asia and therefore did not fit the argument, he writes. Russia, with its policy of conquest in central Asia and the Caucasus, would seem to offer ideal material for Said's argument, Irwin notes, but mysteriously plays no role at all in Orientalism.
Irwin writes for a general audience in a lively, readable style. Somehow, he manages to sneak in Frankenstein's monster (in the novel the creature reads a popular work on Egyptian ruins by the Comte de Volney, a French Orientalist) and Dracula, which was inspired by a lecture on Balkan superstitions by the Hungarian Orientalist Arminius Vambery. But the long roll call of unfamiliar savants, presented in lightning-quick sketches, and the profusion of obscure Arabic texts make the historical section of Dangerous Knowledge occasionally tough going.
The payoff is Irwin's all-out assault on Said, which makes for bracing reading, although it comes a little late in the day. Said died in 2003, and some of the arguments that Irwin advances were thrashed out by Said, Bernard Lewis, Ernest Gellner and others more than 20 years ago. As a useful aside, Irwin registers his own criticisms of Orientalist scholars, especially their blindness (shared by Said) to the rising power of Islamic fundamentalism.
What Irwin makes abundantly clear, whether he fully realizes it or not, is that Orientalism cannot really be refuted. No matter how many errors of fact or interpretation are exposed, the book is invulnerable because it makes a political rather than a scholarly argument. In the age of postcolonial studies, Orientalism continues to get an enthusiastic, even reverential hearing. It may not be right, but it feels good.
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