Review of Middle East Studies

Review of Middle East Studies is cited by Edward Said as part of a network of publications and scholarship that brought critical analyses of the Middle East and imperialism into circulation. Its brief appearance connects it to his larger argument about how knowledge of the region is produced, contested, and shaped by political power.

Publication in a Critical Scholarly Network

Said refers to essays published in the first two issues of Review of Middle East Studies, issued in London by Ithaca Press in 1975 and 1976. He names the journal alongside work by Anwar Abdel Malek and Yves Lacoste, analyses of Middle Eastern politics by Noam Chomsky, and the work of the Middle East Research and Information Project. These references situate the journal within a body of scholarship that examined the region through critical perspectives rather than treating established accounts as unquestioned authority.

Connection to Imperialism and Decolonization

The journal also appears in a bibliographic grouping that includes De l'imperialisme a la decolonisation, a 1965 volume by Gabriel Ardant, Kostas Axelos, Jacques Berque, and others. The grouping places Review of Middle East Studies in a wider intellectual context concerned with imperialism and decolonization. Said’s brief citation does not describe the journal’s organization, editorial policy, or individual contributions, but it identifies its essays as part of the available critical literature on Middle Eastern politics.

Place in Said’s Argument

Said invokes the journal as one example of work that could inform a more historically attentive understanding of the Middle East. Across his broader discussion, he argues that accounts of the region can serve domination when they reduce diverse peoples and histories to fixed images, while careful study can widen understanding and resist those simplifications. The journal’s role in this passage is specific but meaningful: it is among the publications through which alternative analyses entered scholarly debate.