A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
**
The first comprehensive biography of the most influential,
controversial, and celebrated Palestinian intellectual of the twentieth
century.**
Both controversial and beloved, Edward Said was the pioneer of
postcolonial studies, a tireless champion for his native Palestine, and
an erudite literary critic whose books, namely Orientalism, continue
to impact students and thinkers today. In Places of Mind, Timothy
Brennan--who studied under Said and remained a friend until Said's death
in 2003--provides the first complete biography of his thesis adviser,
who emerges as a self-doubting, tender, eloquent advocate of
literature's dramatic effects on politics and civic life.
Charting the intertwined routes of Said's intellectual development,
Places of Mind reveals him to be a brilliant iconoclast: a cajoler and
strategist, a New York intellectual with a foot in Beirut, an orchestra
impresario in Weimar and Ramallah, a raconteur on national television, a
Palestinian negotiator at the State Department, and an actor in films in
which he played himself. Brennan traces the Arab influences on Said's
thinking along with the tutelage by Lebanese statesmen, offbeat
modernist auteurs, and New York literati as Said grew into a scholar
whose writings changed the face of university life forever. With both
intimidating intellect and charm, Said melded these teachings into a
groundbreaking and influential countertradition of radical humanism set
against the backdrop of techno-scientific dominance and religious war.
With unparalleled clarity, he gave the humanities a new authority in the
age of Reaganism, one that continues today.
Drawing on the testimony of family, friends, students, and antagonists
alike, and aided by FBI files and Said's unpublished writings, drafts of
novels, and personal letters, Places of Mind synthesizes Said's
intellectual breadth and influence into an unprecedented, intimate, and
compelling portrait of one of the great minds of the twentieth century.
