In this series of essays, based on his 1993 Reith Lectures, Edward Said explores what it means to be an intellectual today. It is, he argues, the intellectual's role to represent a message or view not only to, but for, a public, and to do so as an outsider - someone who cannot be co-opted by a government or corporation. Interweaving literature, history and philosophy, Said describes and demonstrates how the intellectual must remain a dissenter, never putting solidarity before criticism, and speak from the margins for both the people and the issues which are routinely forgotten or ignored.