Culture and Imperialism

By Edward W. Said

CW: racism, colonialism

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as the Western powers built empires that stretched from Australia to the West Indies, Western artists created masterpieces ranging from Mansfield Park to Heart of Darkness and Aida. Yet most cultural critics continue to see these phenomena as separate. 

This landmark book by the author of Orientalism draws dramatic connections between the imperial endeavor and the culture that both reflected and reinforced it. At the same time, Edward Said also examines the work of such writers as W. B. Yeats, Chinua Achebe, and Salman Rushdie to show how subject peoples produced their own vigorous cultures of opposition and resistance. Vast in scope and stunning in its erudition, Culture and Imperialism reopens the dialogue between literature and the life of its time.