Power, Politics, and Culture

Edward Said has long been considered one of the world’s most compelling public intellectuals, taking on a remarkable array of topics with his many publications. But no single book has encompassed the vast scope of his stimulating erudition quite like Power, Politics, and Culture, a collection of interviews from the last three decades.

In these twenty-eight interviews, Said addresses everything from Palestine to Pavarotti, from his nomadic upbringing under colonial rule to his politically active and often controversial adulthood, and reflects on Austen, Beckett, Conrad, Naipaul, Mahfouz, and Rushdie, as well as on fellow critics Bloom, Derrida, and Foucault. The passion Said feels for literature, music, history, and politics is powerfully conveyed in this indispensable complement to his prolific life's work.

“"A fascinating, oblique entry into the mind of one whose own writings . . . are a brilliant questioning chronicle of contemporary culture and values." --Nadine Gordimer "Edward Said [is] arguably the most consequential literary, cultural, and geopolitical critic of our time." -Richard Poirier "These fascinating and revealing interviews reinforce Edward Said's standing as one of our foremost public intellectuals. His is a democratic and cosmopolitan humanism . . . [that] enlarge[s] our understanding of the world and of ourselves." -Eric Foner”

“A fascinating, oblique entry into the mind of one whose own writings . . . are a brilliant questioning chronicle of contemporary culture and values.” --Nadine Gordimer

"Edward Said [is] arguably the most consequential literary, cultural, and geopolitical critic of our time." —Richard Poirier

"These fascinating and revealing interviews reinforce Edward Said's standing as one of our foremost public intellectuals. His is a democratic and cosmopolitan humanism . . . [that] enlarge[s] our understanding of the world and of ourselves." —Eric Foner

Edward W. Said (1935-2003) was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Orientalism (which was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award), Covering Islam, Peace and Its Discontents, The Politics of Dispossession, Culture and Imperialism, Representations of the Intellectual, The Question of Palestine, Out of Place, The Edward Said Reader, and The End of the Peace Process.

Gauri Viswanathan is Class of 1933 Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. She is the author of Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India and Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity, and Belief.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.