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Occidentalism is a term for stereotyped and sometimes dehumanizing views on the so-called Western world, including Europe, the United States, and Australia. The term was popularized by Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit in their book Occidentalism: the West in the Eyes of its Enemies (2004). The term is an inversion of Orientalism, Edward Said’s label for stereotyped Western views of the East. A number of earlier books had also used the term, sometimes with different meanings.

In a departure from Buruma and Margalit's negative use of the term, Bonnett argues in The Idea of the West (2004) that both occidentalism and 'the West' are, in large part, non-Western inventions. They are employed and deployed, sometimes with very positive connotations, to develop distinct, non-Western, traditions of modernity.

Review

"Occidentalism is a wide-ranging, learned offering to a Western readership baffled by the intensity of hatred it has inspired among Islamic radicals. It is salutary to be reminded that loathing of what we might call the fruits of the Enlightenment has its origin in Europe, as expressed, for example, by the German social scientist Werner Sombart, with his scorn of bourgeois "Komfortismus"." --The Tablet

See also

• Volksgeist
• Herder
• Pan-Arabism
• Chinoiserie
• Clash of Civilizations
• Colonialism
• Japonism
• Orientalism