Nonetheless, the literary critic Paul De Man said that, as a literary critic, 'Said took a step further than any other modern scholar of his time, something I dare not do. Likewise, in the preface paragraphs of a book-review article 'Enough Said' (2007), about Dangerous Knowledge (2007), which is the American title for British-published For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies by Robert Irwin, Martin Kramer criticized what he said was the way Said turned the term 'Orientalism' into a pejorative, saying 'In a semantic sleight of hand, Said appropriated the term 'Orientalism', as a label for the ideological prejudice he described, thereby, neatly implicating the scholars who called themselves Orientalists.'

In a review of a book by Ibn Warraq, American classicist Bruce Thornton dismissed Orientalism as an 'incoherent amalgam of dubious postmodern theory, sentimental Third Worldism, glaring historical errors, and Western guilt'. Critics include Albert Hourani ( A History of the Arab Peoples, 1991), Robert Graham Irwin ( For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and their Enemies, 2006), Nikki Keddie ( An Islamic Response to Imperialism, 1968), and Bernard Lewis (' The Question of Orientalism', Islam and the West, 1993). Despite the book's wide-ranging influence, some have taken issue with the arguments and assumptions of Orientalism.

For Lust Of Knowing by Robert Irwin