Reading Francis Parkman's "Montcalm and Wolfe": Tuesday Books You Should Read Blogging
Reading Francis Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe and remembering one reason why I was so annoyed at Edward Said's Orientalism. The rhetorical moves that Said denounces as orientalist are made by Parkman, but they are not directed at Beijing or Delhi or Baghdad or Cairo: they are directed at Paris. Said never bothered to read deeply enough in the British literature on history and in the history of British political attitudes to realize that what he objected to was not specifically orientalist but rather British nationalist, with its core expression being: "No Popery or wooden shoes!"...
