'An intimate portrait . . Critical, generous and heartfelt' Ahdaf Soueif, Guardian'An intriguing account of an alluring but evasive character"™ Daily TelegraphDrawing on extensive archival sources and hundreds of interviews, Timothy Brennan"™s Places of Mind is the first comprehensive biography of Said, one of the most controversial and celebrated intellectuals of the 20th century. In Brennan"™s masterful work, Said, the pioneer of post-colonial studies, a tireless champion for his native Palestine, and an erudite literary critic, emerges as a self-doubting, tender, and eloquent advocate of literature"™s dramatic effects on politics and civic life. Places of Mind charts the intertwined routes of Said"™s intellectual development, revealing him as a study in opposites: a cajoler and strategist, a New York intellectual with a foot in Beirut, an orchestra impresario in Weimar and Ramallah, a raconteur on national television, a Palestinian negotiator at the State Department, and an actor in films in which he played himself. Brennan traces the Arab influences of Said"™s thinking along with his tutelage under Lebanese statesmen, off-beat modernist auteurs, and New York literati, as Said grew into a scholar whose influential writings changed the face of university life forever. With both intimidating brilliance and charm, Said turned these resources into a groundbreaking counter-tradition of radical humanism, set against the backdrop of techno-scientific dominance and religious war. With unparalleled clarity, Said gave the humanities a new authority in the age of Reaganism that continues today. Drawing on the testimonies of family, friends, students, and antagonists alike, and aided by FBI files, unpublished writing, and Said"™s drafts of novels and personal letters, Places of Mind captures Said"™s intellectual breadth and influence in an unprecedented, intimate, and compelling portrait of one of the great minds of the twentieth century.
