Freud and the Non-European

Edward Said (1935-2003) was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. The author of more than twenty books, his most celebrated publications include Orientalism; The End of the Peace Process; Power, Politics, and Culture; and the memoir Out of Place.

The kind of intellectual and moral subtlety that Said calls for is quickly trampled upon as nations are made and remade. But if it doesn't shape momentous events, it does help record them more scrupulously. Said's influence grows more fruitfully (if slowly) on fellow academics and writers, who can no longer hope to explain the contemporary world by putting the adjective 'ancient' before the noun 'hatred'; they have to work towards a better sense of the ever-changing historical conditions under which identities appear so eternal.