From Jane Austen to Salman Rushdie, from Yeats to the media coverage of the Gulf War, this is an account of the roots of imperialism in European culture. While many historians and commentators have analyzed the phenomenon of the imperial power wielded by Britain (and France) in the 19th century, this book analyzes its impact on the culture of the period. The author focusses on the way this cultural legacy has embedded itself in the Western view of the East, and affects our relationship with the formerly colonized world at every level, both social and political. The author also wrote Orientalism.