Edward Said's seminal work, Orientalism (1978), examines the view of the "Orient" by a group of Western writers, some of whom have close ties to the imperialist establishment. Thus, the "Orient" is portrayed with all the negative labels imaginable: terrorist, greedy, corrupt, awash in undeserved wealth,... thus justifying the "West"'s control and colonization. With a few exceptions, Orientalists, according to Said, treat the Orient and the West as two fixed entities: the first rigid, irrational, and monolithic, the second changeable, rational, and pluralistic. Said concludes that the "West," through Orientalism, works to produce itself through what it promotes as its opposite... However, Edward Said does not confront Orientalism with "Occidentalism." Orientalism is a book against the enclosure of cultures within closed fortresses. Hence, it belongs not only to the field of comparative literature, postcolonial studies, or literary criticism, but also to a field that brings them all together and moves toward a universal human vision.