Imagining the Middle East

Dean F. Oliver teaches history at York University.

This ambitious and important book attempts to explain to a Western
audience how myth, misperception, and ignorance have gradually resulted
in the view of the Middle East as a cultural, moral, and political
“other,” an object of pity and fear, condescension and loathing. The
mere existence of the Middle East having “nurtured the antinomy
through which the West has repeatedly defined itself,” European
ethnocentrism had begun to separate the region consciously, and
unconsciously, into a unique category as early as the 14th century,
though not until the late 16th century were the conditions for this
“symbolic duality” finally in place.

Even then, another two centuries elapsed before the dichotomy implanted
itself fully in the deepest recesses of the Western imagination, borne
by unbounded faith in reason, progress, and modernity. The recent Gulf
War is the logical but horrendous culmination of centuries of Western
depreciation of “the other” and rationalization of its own actions.
Though clearly aghast at Western prejudice and military methods, Hentsch
suggests that the war must be viewed not in terms of racism, “but as
the culminating point of a way of thinking which, all manipulation
aside, today enjoys both coherence and respectability: a way of thinking
which may be subscribed to in good faith.”

The chronological and interpretive sweep of this study thus stretches
from the ancient world to Operation Desert Storm. Hentsch has marshaled
an impressive body of primary and secondary material that leans heavily
on travelogue-like impressions of the Middle East and its people, and on
quotable snippets from self-styled “orientalists.” He also writes
exceptionally well, though a penchant for decorative prose at times
derails the effort. That his argument, though challenging, ultimately
fails to convince is perhaps further testimony to the mental malaise
into which he alleges the West has fallen. More likely it is due to the
incompleteness of an argument that grants little credence (its
author’s claims to the contrary) to international power politics,
economic competition, religious orthodoxy, and the ineluctable
historical forces of character and circumstance.

“This book is not about the Orient,” Hentsch claims; “it is about
us.” It might have been better as a little of both.