Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament: Perspectives on South AsiaIn his extraordinarily influential book Orientalism, Edward Said argued that Western knowledge about the Orient in the Post Enlightenment period has been a systematic discourse by which Europe was able to manage even produce the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively. According to Said, European and American views of the Orient created a reality in which the Oriental was forced to live.