Europe Knows Nothing about the Orient – A Critical Discourse (1872–1932)

"Compelling in its scope and content. . . . The insightfully selected and efficiently translated texts in this volume bear witness to the emergence and entrenchment of European Orientalism from the perspective of its subjects. . . . Europe Knows Nothing about the Orient is an invitation to finally begin investigating Orientalism from the other side, from the perspective of the 'Orientals,' with all the attendant complexities and contradictions." * Los Angeles Review of Books *
"Essential reading. Magisterial and erudite, with an introduction that will be a guide to scholars for generations to come, this volume will change the way we think about history. It reveals a worldly, intellectual, cosmopolitan late-Ottoman world, one engaged both in 'projects of modernity' and in sharp critical assessment of the assumptions of European scholars regarding the ‘Orient.’ It thus has the effect of both contesting Orientalist theorists of the nineteenth century as well as disrupting those of the twenty-first, who tend to locate the enterprise of theoretical salvation of the Orient in the realm of Euro-American intellectual thought." -- Jerrilynn Dodds, Harlequin Adair Dammann Professor of Islamic Studies, Sarah Lawrence College
"Çelik introduces readers to how Ottoman and Turkish journalists, thinkers, novelists, and poets responded to Orientalist fantasies about the East, specifically about the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. Since Edward Said’s germinal work defined Orientalism as a key technique of imperialism, few studies have considered local expressions of resistance to it. Çelik’s masterful volume brilliantly curates excellent translations of stories, articles, and comments from Turkish language—themselves symptomatic for signifying imperial and nationalist dreams. Beyond providing primary sources from the ‘Ottoman East’ that add nuance to understandings of Orientalism as merely imposed upon unsuspecting and compliant subjects, the texts Çelik explores offer fascinating reading, displaying the richness and vigor of intellectual debates about Western cultural hegemony in late Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republic. The work will contribute to understandings of Orientalism as a site of dialogue among intellectuals, and it will take its place on the bookshelves of all those who teach and research in the field." -- Selim S. Kuru, University of Washington