ABSTRACT
The formal foundation of Arabic studies in England, in the modern period, may be dated from the creation of a chair of Arabic, at Oxford, in 1640. The rise of oriental studies in France might reasonably be dated from the posthumous publication, in 1697, of Berthelemy d'Herbelot de Molainville's Bibliotheque orientale. In France, as in England, the growing interest in all things oriental, created in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, found an institutional expression. The rise of oriental studies in Germany may be dated from the turn of the eighteenth century, when a number of German scholars trained in Paris, many by Sacy, returned home to pursue their new-found vocation. The rise of oriental studies elsewhere in Europe in the nineteenth century was equally impressive. The close correlation that existed between orientalism, as a profession, and colonialism can be seen most clearly in the career of Silvestre de Sacy, the effective founder of French orientalism.
