The Idiot Said

Noel Malcolm's review of The Absent-Minded Imperialists by Bernard Porter includes these gems:

So confident are modern writers in the omnipresence of imperialism that specific references to the Empire are not in fact required: thus one modern art critic has identified an imperialist theme in Constable's painting Hadleigh Castle on the grounds that the Thames Estuary (shown in the background) "represents" British expansion into the rest of the world. (Being a tidal estuary, it might just as well represent the expansion of the rest of the world into Britain – but never mind.)

When the late Edward Said put forward his theory that the English novel was essentially the expression of an imperialist culture, his supporters were quite untroubled by the fact that there was scarcely a single major novel between Defoe and Kipling that had a contemporary colonial setting. The failure to mention the Empire was itself, according to Said, an act of imperialist "marginalising". Heads he wins, tails his opponents lose.

Yeah, I notice a lot of American's don't speak Chinese. Marginalizers!