Culture and Imperialism

By: Edward Said

Narrated by: Peter Ganim

Length: 19 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

A landmark work from the intellectually auspicious author of Orientalism, this book explores the long-overlooked connections between the Western imperial endeavor and the culture that both reflected and reinforced it. This classic study, the direct successor to Said's main work, is read by Peter Ganim (Orientalism).

©1993 Edward Said (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Edward Said makes one of the strongest cases ever for the aphorism, 'the pen is mightier than the sword.' This is a brilliant work of literary criticism that essentially becomes political science. Culture and Imperialism demonstrates that Western imperialism's most effective tools for dominating other cultures have been literary in nature as much as political and economic. He traces the themes of 19th- and 20th-century Western fiction and contemporary mass media as weapons of conquest and also brilliantly analyzes the rise of oppositional indigenous voices in the literatures of the 'colonies'.... Very highly recommended for anyone who wants to understand how cultures are dominated by words, as well as how cultures can be liberated by resuscitating old voices or creating new voices for new times." (Amazon.com review)

"Grandly conceived… urgently written and urgently needed…. No one studying the relations between the metropolitan West and the decolonizing world can ignore Mr. Said's work." ( The New York Times Book Review)

super!

brilliant analysis, rich language, deep reflection , this book is very much recommended to those who want to understand our world.

Ganim allows Said to shine

Said is an essential read for anyone I would argue, and here is Said at his best, but I would like to take the time to praise Peter Ganim for his extraordinary job with an incredibly challenging work. His pronunciation of foreign names and words is excellent, and his French in particular is near native.

Cultural literary criticism

Culture and Imperialism describes how the language used in literature can powerfully impact our stereotypes of other cultures. Using examples in classical literature (ranging from Jane Austen, to Joseph Conrad, to Albert Camus), Said shows us how imperialism was reinforced by the written word. Then, (using examples including V.S. Naipaul and Salman Rushdie) he illuminates how today's societies - who are so focused on multi-culturalism - read the right books for the wrong reasons. I found this book intriguing. I listened to it on audiobook - Ganim's reading was smooth and engaging - but I'm now tempted to pick up a hard-copy of the book and use it as a reference in my perusal of literature. This book would be interesting to anyone interested in the culture of imperialism or in literary criticism of literature in the imperialist era.

A MUST READ

This is the follow up of “Orientalism”. Both books are excellent.
In this book mr. Said refers to well known literary works, written during Colonial times, mainly dominated by England and France. Some of them I have read and will definitely read again with a new awareness.
The discrimination against people, other than Europeans, is mind boggling and it is still going on. It is still a “power grab”, but
not labeled “colonialism”.
There is so much interesting information in this audio book, that I am considering buying the physical book.
It is a great loss that the author, mr. Edward Said passed away at a relatively young age.
In checking Audible you will find a number of books, by other authors, that tie into this subject.
It will be interesting to re-read certain classics with a different point of view.
The narrator, mr. Peter Gamin, did an outstanding job.
My thanks to Audible for making the book available and I am looking for other books along this line, JK.



















The narrator, mr. Peter Ganim, did an outstanding job.
My thanks to Audible for making the book available and I am looking for other books along this line, JK.

Audible should do more of these kinds of books

What did you love best about Culture and Imperialism?

This is one of Said's most accessible works, and has a lot to offer. The fact that it is a long sequence of essays does lead to trying to listen to it straight through, and not all the pieces are gold. But that's not my point in writing a review. I'm writing it because like another reviewer says here, this is a REAL BOOK. Audible is clogging itself with every single vampire/insipid-spirational/cheap suspense series book in the known universe. There's way too much junk on Audible now and not nearly enough stuff for people who want to learn about real issues (and not just through bashed-out polemics about Obama or the Founders). Again, there should be MORE stuff like "C&I" here for the customers who don't really give a fang about Sookie Stackhouse or whatever.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Culture and Imperialism?

I am a grown-up and like reading stuff for grown-ups. Said is a grown-up writing about grown-up stuff in a grown-up way. Like what he says about culture and imperialism. That was a memorable moment...oh wait, that was the book!!!

Which character – as performed by Peter Ganim – was your favorite?

Kudos to Ganin for taking this on and doing a great job.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

n/a

A Relevant Book for our Times

What was one of the most memorable moments of Culture and Imperialism?

“Power” is not really measured by the tanks and weapons but more importantly by literature and science.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Edward Said, in the same line of Noam Chomsky, talks about manufacturing consent. He challenges the secular reader, i.e. us, to have a role. He challenges us to "think" about why we deem it necessary to read what we read, and how we read it. It is not only the reading of books, it would turn out, but the picking of concepts, too, that are trivialized and added to universities as though students ‘have the choice to pick them out like they are looking at a menu’: Communism. Women's Liberation. Slavery. Racism. Revolution. Colonization. Post Modernism. Orientalism... all of these theories that are placed before us.

“No one today is purely one thing. Labels like Indian, or woman, or Muslim, or American are not more than starting-points, which if followed into actual experience for only a moment are quickly left behind. Imperialism consolidated the mixture of cultures and identities on a global scale. But its worst and most paradoxical gift was to allow people to believe that they were only, mainly, exclusively, white, or Black, or Western, or Oriental. Yet just as human beings make their own history, they also make their cultures and ethnic identities. No one can deny the persisting continuities of long traditions, sustained habitations, national languages, and cultural geographies, but there seems to no reason except fear and prejudice to keep insisting on their separation and distinctiveness, as if that was all human life was about. Survival in fact is about the connections between things; in Eliot’s phrase, reality cannot be deprived of the “other echoes [that] inhabit the garden.” It is more rewarding –and more difficult—to think concretely and sympathetically, contrapuntally, about others than only about “us.” But this also means not trying to rule others, not trying to classify them or put them in hierarchies, above all, not constantly reiterating how “our” culture or country is number one (or not number one, for that matter). For the intellectual there is quite enough of value to do without that."

Any additional comments?

Edward Said is an intellectual; extremely well-read and somewhat self-important. I have to admit that some chunks of the book (which I speed-narrated) were a little dull to listen to, such as his over-and-slightly-imposed scrutiny of Jane Austen’s and Verdi’s work, or the repetitive-and-slightly-overbearing analysis of other works of fiction. Yet the last chapters of the book brought rise to powerful messages that are becoming more relevant in our times than ever before.

There are strikingly important points that Edward Said makes at the very end of this book that were reminiscent of Amin Maalouf’s “In the Name of Identity, Violence and the Need to Belong.” Both of these intellectuals seem to have battled with their identities in exile and came out with similar perceptions of how it is through “fear and prejudice” that patriotism and intolerance are made up. These may be the two factors that shape up mainstream culture, including the media, and, basically, the hegemony of discourse.

I could not help thinking about what Edward Said would make of social media today: Would he perhaps have thought that an app like twitter only reinforces the regulation of public discussion and mainstream culture? Would he have said the most-followed tweeps belong to “privileged ethnic groups” and that the rest of the world that is trying to emulate them are all but going to get crushed, or, worse, ignored? Whoever said that this book is “dated” may want to reconsider.

Excellent reader

This reader is amazing. He pronounces french and german very well and makes a compelling reading of an otherwise incredibly tedious work to listen to. Said is great, bur 20 hours are a lot! Thanks to the reader they went by swiftly and his tone was always appropriated to the context. I look forward to more of his books!

Necessary, eye-opening journey

Truly a tour de force. Every student of the humanities must read this book. It's intense, but not in that academic theory heavy kind of language. Said’s historical backed up decolonial yet super associative approach is stunning at times. In addition to soaking up the conceptual force sometimes I stopped just to repeat phrases out loud. Said is a gifted writer as well.
Often I had to stop listening to let my brain process all this experience.
The narrator did a great job handling the various languages in this book.

BRAVO, AUDIBLE!! WE NEED MORE SAID!! REAL BOOKS!!

Bravo!!
I am waiting for Audible to do Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society by Edward W. Said and Daniel Barenboim !! Please !!!
This is a truly masterful and enigmatic work that is immensely readable despite its well-earned reputation. Consequently this is a book that will and should be of interest to everyone, from the specialist to the casual reader who has never encountered theory before.
So why then Culture and Imperialism?
Western societies seem to have entered a phase of collective amnesia whereby colonialism, if it is remembered at all, is envisioned as ending somewhere along the length of the Suez Canal.
Said's thoughtful analysis challenges the modern myth of the end of Empire and of the slow decline of an age of economic and cultural imperialism which came to an end sometime after 1948 with the final dropping of the Union Jack in the final colonially occupied territory.
In many ways economic and cultural imperialism is as pervasive and violent today as it ever was, if not a little more so. Indeed, Said's brilliance in this book is to fundamentally disrupt and deconstruct the modern Western amnesia. Far from being back then and over there Said helps us to trace the links, connections, and complicities between writers as diverse as Jane Austen, J. S. Mill and W. B. Yeats.
For anyone with an interest in postcolonialism Culture and Imperialism is an essential grounding. Not only does the text follow on from Said's brilliant and ground-breaking Ur text of postcolonial studies Orientalism, but it suggests the possibility and methodology of subjecting imperialism to a systemic analysis.
Said has always been controversial, and rightly so. Unlike the quite frankly shoddy and poorly argued vitriol of some of his detractors (and reviewers) Said's work is always superbly well argued and controlled. Whether you support Said's point of view or not you cannot but fail to be impressed by his depth of insight and by the humanism of his intelligence.

Balanced, necessary

Critical view of empire and its cultures. Also important balanced views on local reactions and responses. Essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the fallout from Imperialism, and the effects on the local orientations toward Empires.