Few books are as vital as this one for understanding politics today. - Rated 
I don't think that there is a lot to add to the reviews which praise this book.
How 'The West' sees others, especially Islam and Muslims, is so central to current world events that any work which addresses the issue is of interest and any that is as incisive as this one is vital.
That 'Orientalism' has withstood 3 decades of counter-attack from from it's detractors is testament to it's strength as a description and an analysis.
The book can be tough reading at times and Said can be prone to using twenty words when one will do. A more succinct and readable account of the same thesis is found in Said's 'Covering Islam'.
One other minor criticism, Said got Marx wrong. But never mind.
Still, essential for anyone who wants to engage with the world today.
Absolute classic - Rated
Read to get an in depth idea of why we are where we are in the "Middle East"
Good, but.... - Rated 
The book is good I suppose. After all a classic. A standard work.
But it's seventies writing: superfluous, too elaborate, tiresome. A style that continuously tends too distract the reader from what is said. Nowadays it would take half that amount of pages to make your point.
A Stunning Monument To Engaged Scholarship - Rated
A stunningly accomplished attack on Orientalism in all its guises. Said's richly detailed and politically charged break-through work has been subject to countless misreadings, misunderstandings and wilful distortions since its publication in the late 1970s. Being aware of these claims and counter-claims I was hugely relieved to discover that they had (very almost) no foundation in the text itself. Like his other writings, a generous humanism informs the argument here, an argument which also benefits stylistically from a wonderful way with words. Indeed, this easily meets the challenge laid down for the best prose - that it should read with a distinctive and convincing voice, as if it was being spoken aloud with authority.
Orientalism is not an endorsement of Occidentalism. It does not essentialise either the East or the West. It does not reduce all scholarship about the Orient to politically-motivated scaffolding. It does not lump all Orientalism, across all time and space, together as the same undifferentiated mass. It does not romanticise the 'Arab' or demonise the 'Westerner'.
Rather, it treats thinkers with subtlety and (occasionally) some sympathy. It brims with textual reference and informed context. It specifies historical moments, institutional states, variations, contradictions and antagonisms. It exposes essentialist and politically-expedient simplification with panache and wit. It rejects all arguments from undifferentiated historical essence, all reductions and denials of agency, history, contestation, dialogue.
It is a landmark and a vital monument that continues to deserve our attention. Yes, the arguments have been extended. Yes, some of the misunderstandings can be traced to ambiguity in the text as well as to ignorance and deliberate misreading. But, as I think Spivak said, the work that we have that continues (some might say improves) on Orientalism is only possible because it carved such an accomplished and necessary path first.
Brilliant.
It's about the Truth - Rated 
I don't know much about "Orient" or "Orientalism" and after all this book is not about what I thought it would be but as a History undergraduate student I found this book very revealing. It's about the necessity for searching for the Truth, without contenting yourself with superficial findings based not on the Truth itself but what it is convenient for you to call true.
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