With a powerful combination of political and aesthetic concerns, the works of Edward W. Said have transformed the field of literary study. As in the titular essay, the widely admired "Reflection on Exile," the fact of his own exile and the fate of the Palestinians have given shape and the force of intimacy to the questions that Said has explored. Collected, these essays - from the famous to those that will surprise even the most devoted followers of Said - offer a rare insight into the formation of a critic and the development of intellectual professionalism. Said's themes are many and varied, from the heroic films of Tarzan to the masculinity of Ernest Hemingway and the nuances of difference that separate Alexandria from Cairo. He provides significant reevaluations of authors and artists such as George Orwell, Giambattista Vico, Georg Lukacs, R. P. Blackmur, E. M. Cioran, Naguib Mahfouz, Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad, Walter Lippman, Samuel Huntington, Antonio Gramsci, and Raymond Williams. Lively, educational, and acutely attentive to the competing pressures of personal and historical experience, his book is a source of immeasurable intellectual pleasure.

Pages: 656, Dimensions: 15.3x15.3cm