Monday, June 23, 2008

Recent Reading - Russia and Asia

I just finished reading Wayne S. Vucinich, ed. , Russia and Asia: Essays on the Influence of Russia on the Asian Peoples (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1972). In particular I found the essay by Vucinich, "The Structure of Soviet Orientology: Fifty Years of Change and Accomplishment", to be very interesting. He examines and evaluates the broad range of writing by Soviet orientalists from the 1920s through the 1960s. He notes specifically both their strengths and weaknesses. This is a far cry from Said's dismissal of all orientalist scholarship. It is also a far more difficult task.

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