ABSTRACT
This chapter provides some contexts for understanding the canonisation of this book as a postcolonial classic through a consideration of its academic influence and theoretical limitations. Commonly regarded as the catalyst and reference point for post-colonialism, Orientalism represents the first phase of postcolonial theory. In order properly to assess the phenomenal success of Orientalism, people need to return to the scene of its publication in 1978. Few critics dispute the continuities between poststructuralist theory and Orientalism. The objective of Ahmad’s polemic, in this instance, is to provide a context for Orientalism. In this context, Orientalism needs to be read as an attempt to extend the geographical and historical terrain for the poststructuralist discontent with Western epistemology. If Orientalism is a limited text, then it is so primarily because it fails to accommodate the possibility of difference within Oriental discourse.
