From Jane Austen to Salman Rushdie, and from Yeats to the news coverage of the Gulf War, this is broad account of the roots of imperialism in European culture, and an analysis of the impact of 19th-century British and French imperialism on the culture of the period. The author focuses on the way in which this cultural legacy has embedded itself in the Western view of the East, and affects our relationship with the once-colonized world at all levels, both social and political.;Edward Said’s other books include “Orientalism”, “The Question of Palestine” and “After the Last Sky”.