Routledge Reassessing Orientalism: Interlocking Orientologies during the Cold War (Routledge Studies in the History of Russia and Eastern Europe)

Orientalism as a concept was first applied to Western colonial views of the East. Subsequently, different types of orientalism were discovered but the premise was that these took their lead from Western-style orientalism, applying it in different circumstances. This book, on the other hand, argues that the diffusion of interpretations and techniques in orientalism was not uni-directional, and that the different orientologies – Western, Soviet and oriental orientologies – were interlocked, in such a way that a change in any one of them affected the others; that the different orientologies did not develop in isolation from each other; and that, importantly, those being orientalised were active, not passive, players in shaping how the views of themselves were developed. Review "On their merits individually, and taken as a whole, the contributions in this volume will be of great interest to scholars of Soviet history, the Cold War, contemporary Islam, and academic politics. Kemper and Kalinovsky have set the agenda for scholarly discussions of Orientalism for the near future."Eren Tasar, University of North Carolina "On the whole, the book makes a compelling argument for the need to take into account the global dynamics of the Cold War in order to understand the development of Soviet Oriental studies and, in particular, the paradox why a discipline that after 1917 was 'officially called upon to transform from a tool of oppression into an instrument of liberation' turned into a more effective instrument of politics and state power than had been the case before the revolution."                                                                                                                                                          Matthias Battis, St. Petersburg About the Author Michael Kemper is Professor of Eastern European Studies at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands Artemy M. Kalinovsky is Assistant Professor in the European Studies Department at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands