and translated all over the world, in thirty-six languages. Thanks to the efforts of my dear friend and colleague Professor Gaby Peterberg, now of UCLA, formerly of Ben Gurion University in Israel there is a Hebrew version of the book available. which has stimulated considerable discussion and debate among Israeli readers and students. In addition, a Vietnamese translation has appeared under Australian auspices; I hope it's not immodest to say that an Indochinese intellectual space seems to have opened up for the propositions of this book. In any case, it gives me great pleasure to note as an author who had never dreamed of any such happy fate for his work that interest in what I tried to do in my book hasn't completely died down, particularly in the many different lands of the "Orient "itself. In part, of course, that is because the Middle East, the Arabs and Islam have continued to fuel enormous change, struggle, controversy and, as I write these lines, war. As I said many years ago, Orientalism is the product of circumstances that are fundamentally, indeed radically, fractious. In my memoir Out of place(1999)I described the strange and contradictory worlds in which I grew up, providing for myself and my readers a detailed account of the settings that I think formed me in Palestine, Egypt and Lebanon. But that was only a very personal account that stopped short of all the years of my own political engagement that started after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war,a war in whose continuing aftermath(Israel is still in military occupation of the Palestinian territories and the golan Heights) the terms of struggle and the ideas at stake that were crucial for my generation of Arabs and Americans eem to go on. Nevertheless I do want to affirm yet again that this book and, for that matter, my intellectual work generally have really been enabled by my life as a university academic. For all its often noted defects and problems the American university-and mine, Columbia, in particular is still one of the few remaining places in the United States where reflection and study can take place in an almost utopian fashion. I have never taught anything about the Middle East, being by training and practice a teacher of the mainly European and American humanities, a special-ist in modem comparative literature. The university and my pedagogic work with two generations of first and excellent colleagues have made possible the kind of deliberately meditated and analyzed sti that this book contains, which for all its urgent worldly references is still a book about culture, ideas, history and power, rather than Middle Eastern politics lout court, That was my notion from the beginning, and it is very evident and a good deal clearer to me today. Yet Orientalism is very much a book tied to the tumultuous ics of contemporary history. I emphasize in it accordingly that neither the term Orient nor the concept of the Las any ontological stability; each is made up of human effort, partly affirmation, partly identification of the That these supreme fictions lend themselves easily to manipulation and the organization of collective passion has never been more evident than in our time Then the mobilizations of fear, hatred, disgust and resurgent self- pride and arrogance--much of it having to do with Islam and the arabs on one side, "we"Westerners on the other-are very large-scale enterprises. Orientalism's first page opens with a 1975 description of the Lebanese Civil War that ended 0, but the violence and the ugly shedding of human blood continues up to this minute. We have had the failure of the Oslo peace process, the outbreak of the second intifada, and the awful suffering of the palestinians on the reinvaded West Bank and Gaza, with Israeli F-16s and Apache helicopters used routinely on the defenseless civilians as part of their collective punishment. The suicide bombing phenomenon has appeared with all its hideous damage, none more lurid and apocalyptic of course than the events of September I l and their aftermath in the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. As I gal and unsanctioned imperial invasion and occupation of Iraq by britain and the United States This is all part of what is supposed to be a clash of civilizations, unending, implacable, irremediable. Nevertheless, I think I wish I could say, however, that general understanding of the Middle East, the Arabs and Islam in the United States hasand translated all over the world, in thirty-six languages. Thanks to the efforts of my dear friend and colleague Professor Gaby Peterberg, now of UCLA, formerly of Ben Gurion University in Israel, there is a Hebrew version of the book available, which has stimulated considerable discussion and debate among Israeli readers and students. In addition, a Vietnamese translation has appeared under Australian auspices; I hope it's not immodest to say that an Indochinese intellectual space seems to have opened up for the propositions of this book. In any case, it gives me great pleasure to note as an author who had never dreamed of any such happy fate for his work that interest in what I tried to do in my ((xii)) book hasn't completely died down, particularly in the many different lands of the "Orient" itself. In part, of course, that is because the Middle East, the Arabs and Islam have continued to fuel enormous change, struggle, controversy and, as I write these lines, war. As I said many years ago, Orientalism is the product of circumstances that are fundamentally, indeed radically, fractious. In my memoir Out of Place (1999) I described the strange and contradictory worlds in which I grew up, providing for myself and my readers a detailed account of the settings that I think formed me in Palestine, Egypt and Lebanon. But that was only a very personal account that stopped short of all the years of my own political engagement that started after the 1967 Arab–Israeli war, a war in whose continuing aftermath (Israel is still in military occupation of the Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights) the terms of struggle and the ideas at stake that were crucial for my generation of Arabs and Americans seem to go on. Nevertheless I do want to affirm yet again that this book and, for that matter, my intellectual work generally have really been enabled by my life as a university academic. For all its often noted defects and problems, the American university— and mine, Columbia, in particular is still one of the few remaining places in the United States where reflection and study can take place in an almost utopian fashion. I have never taught anything about the Middle East, being by training and practice a teacher of the mainly European and American humanities, a special-ist in modem comparative literature. The university and my pedagogic work with two generations of first￾class students and excellent colleagues have made possible the kind of deliberately meditated and analyzed study that this book contains, which for all its urgent worldly references is still a book about culture, ideas, history and power, rather than Middle Eastern politics tout court. That was my notion from the beginning, and it is very evident and a good deal clearer to me today. Yet Orientalism is very much a book tied to the tumultuous dynamics of contemporary history. I emphasize in it accordingly that neither the term Orient nor the concept of the West has any ontological stability; each is made up of human effort, partly affirmation, partly identification of the Other. That these supreme fictions lend themselves easily to manipulation and the organization of collective passion has never been more evident than in our time, when the mobilizations of fear, hatred, disgust and resurgent self￾pride and arrogance— much of it having to do with Islam and the Arabs on one side, "we" Westerners on the other— are very large-scale enterprises. Orientalism's first page opens with a 1975 description of the Lebanese Civil War that ended in 1990, but the violence and the ugly shedding of human blood continues up to this minute. We have had the failure of the Oslo peace process, the outbreak of the second intifada, and the awful suffering of the Palestinians on the reinvaded West Bank and Gaza, with Israeli F-16's and Apache helicopters used routinely on the defenseless civilians as part of their collective punishment. The suicide bombing phenomenon has appeared with all its hideous damage, none more lurid and apocalyptic of course than the events of September 11 and their aftermath in the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. As I write these lines, the illegal and unsanctioned imperial invasion and occupation of Iraq by Britain and the United States proceeds, with a prospect of physical ravagement, political unrest and more invasions that is truly awful to contemplate. This is all part of what is supposed to be a clash of civilizations, unending, implacable, irremediable. Nevertheless, I think not. I wish I could say, however, that general understanding of the Middle East, the Arabs and Islam in the United States has