THE CRITIQUES OF EDWARD SAID'S 1978 BOOK Orientalism were many and varied, and some of them are addressed in the introduction to this volume. For the purposes of this chapter, the most relevant criticism is that Said did not adequately account for developments in the Germanspeaking lands. Anticipating this criticism, Said attempted to justify his virtual neglect of the German heritage. He argued that he focused on Britain and France because they were “the pioneer nations in the Orient and in Oriental studies,” and also that “these vanguard positions were held by virtue of the two greatest colonial networks in pre-twentieth-century history” (17). Further, he attests that “the sheer quality, consistency, and mass of British, French, and American writing on the Orient lifts it above the doubtless crucial work done in Germany, Italy, Russia, and elsewhere” (17). This is certainly true, though Said introduces a slight note of contradiction when he speaks of the “doubtless crucial work” in these countries and then dismisses its quality. With respect to German scholars in particular, though, the salient point is that they were armchair Orientalists—and thus