International Political Anthropology Vol. 6 (2013) No. 1 Orientalism and War M. Evren Eken Tarak Barkawi & Keith Stanski (ed.) (2012) Orientalism and War, London: Hurst & Company. ISBN: 97818490420 Albeit war-clad and war-torn environment of human history; war as a study topic has been one of the strangest neglections of social sciences in general. Notwithstanding the earlier expectations of the 1990s, today, instead of diminishing, war remains an important part of the international political arena. Moreover, the scenes of this arena are either replete with expert views on those wars, or with movies and documentaries framing those wars which much of them taking place in/with an othered Orient. How are those scenes of wars, however, especially those taking place in the Orient, fraŵed? IŶ other ǁords, hoǁ do ǁe fraŵe the the orieŶt iŶ ǁar aŶd ǁar iŶ the orieŶt? To what extent are those framings neutral and how do cultural ways of thinking shape the lethal ways of thinking? Revolving around these questions, the book takes us to a belated quest. Strangely, albeit an initial expectation to find an already established literature answering those questions on the relations between war and orientalism, the topic is conspicuously neglected as an analytical framework in social sciences just as war itself. By filling this gap and clearing the ground for further related studies, Barkawi and Stanski write nothing short of a seminal work. In this regard the aiŵ of the ďook is to ďriŶg orieŶtalisŵ aŶd ǁar uŶder the saŵe aŶalLJtiĐal fraŵe to edžplore hoǁ truths are ŵade ;aŶd uŶŵadeͿ through ǀioleŶt ĐoŶfliĐt ;p. ϭϬͿ. Following an insightful editorial introduction by Barkawi and Stanski, the book falls into three sections written by various scholars on the topic. This introductory chapter, however, is significantly important to understand the seminal scope of the book. Barkawi and Stanski first outline the strange aďseŶĐe of aŶ idea of a ǁar studies iŶ soĐial sĐieŶĐes iŶ geŶeral. As also ĐaŶ ďe ŶotiĐed iŶ Barkaǁi’s recent works (2011; 2012), the neglection of war per se as a distinct study topic was partly deriving from the legacy of sociology. The authors re-state the claim that, apart from a thin literature, (Giddens, 1985: 326; Mann, 1988) war did not take much of the interest of neither earlier, nor contemporary sociological studies. Such an exclusion of war in sociology was partly deriving from the Enlightenment heritage of soĐial sĐieŶĐes ǁhiĐh ǁas fulfilled itself ǁith a hope for ǁar’s ŶasĐeŶt oďsolesĐeŶĐe. Froŵ EŶlighteŶŵeŶt to Durkheiŵ, ŵost ŵajor soĐiologists oŵitted ǁar froŵ their ĐeŶtral proďleŵatiĐ uŶder the delusioŶ that future soĐietLJ ǁould ďe paĐifiĐ aŶd traŶsŶatioŶal (Mann, 1988: 147). In this regard, albeit the ambiguities of the proposal, the book in general can also be regarded as a work paving the way of an idea of a Critical War Studies. After underlining this absence in the literature, they pinpoint the socially generative powers of war by drawing on the work of Clausewitz, and then turn the attention to war`s relation with Orientalism. As stressed by Said in Orientalism (1978), neither the means, nor the ends of seeing the Orient are neutral. Rather, those misrepresentations are highly political and hence open to misuse and abuse. Following this, Barkawi and Stanski relates the impact of cultural ways of seeing the Orient, as the Other, to the ways of war making with it.