This book is a continuation of the reflections begun by Edward Said in Orientalism, his classic work. If the focus of Orientalism is the connection between philological research and the formation of an artistic image of the East, as well as the control of European empires over the countries of Asia and Africa, Culture and Imperialism expands the researcher’s geography, but at the same time concretizes his focus. Said traces how images of power, imperial space, and colonial inhabitants are intertwined in the works of such authors as Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, François Chateaubriand, and in the opera Aida by Giuseppe Verdi.

The second key theme of this book is nationalism and strategies of resistance to European domination, which Said leads the way to through an analysis of Irish literature. This work, revealing sometimes imperceptible details and connections, encourages the reader to analyze already known works in a new way.