Cameron Ormsby--Week Four--Hentsch

Hentsch’s discussion of the changing European attitudes towards the Middle East was interesting because it put the European approach to the New World into context. Hentsch does a good job in linking evolving perceptions of the Ottoman Empire on a political level to the attitudes of the travel writers who visit. I thought his argument that a weaker Ottoman Empire could be more easily admired because it posed less of a threat to the idea of European superiority was well supported. It was also interesting to see the appearance of threads like the ‘exotic Orient’ and the ‘despotic Orient’ and trace their roots back to European literature and philosophy. That Voltaire might use Islam and the Turks as a convenient stand in for Christianity and European fanatics to avoid getting in trouble with the Church was so interesting. Hentsch also did a good job in tracing the waning but still potent religious critique of the Middle East. Many of his travel narratives saw society or culture rather than religion as the source of problems, even as they argued for European unity in the face of the infidel. I also seem to be finding a pattern in the tropes of European travel writing: where they confront societies lacking strong government they see savages and primitives, and where they confront societies with robust governments they see despotism. Finally, I thought Hentsch demonstrated how the travel writing on the Middle East was tailored to fit an existing argument for the progress of European civilization and the waning of earlier and more primitive empires. The critiques of Middle Eastern religion, politics, sciences, and philosophy evolved from an outright rejection when the Ottoman Empire overshadowed Europe to a more historical perspective, where they were seen in the context of Ancient Greece and Persia.