For Lust of Knowing
Robert Graham Irwin
 While For Lust of Knowing is a riposte to Said's Orientalism, much of the book is taken up with a general history of Orientalism as an academic discipline. Unlike Said's work, it does not examine fiction, painting or other art forms. It focuses mainly in the work of British, French and German Orientalists and contrasts their different approaches and occasional idiosyncrasies. When Irwin does mention Said, it is usually to point out an error or inconsistency in Said's analysis. For example, one of the few Orientalists Said professes to admire is Louis Massignon. Irwin points out that Said "fail[ed] to note Massignon's anti-Semitism" and "his decidedly patronising attitude to Arabs", as well as Massignon's debt to Ernest Renan, one of the villains of Orientalism. In the chapter that specifically focuses on Said's Orientalism, Irwin highlights Said's inconsistent melding of the work of Foucault and Gramsci.