Linguist, lexicographer, writer, editor, broadcaster

“The Alternative United States” by Dr. Edward Said from

;[…]Apart from a few courses and seminars on American literature and politics scattered throughout the universities of the Arab world, there has never been anything like an academic center for the systematic and scientific analysis of America, its people, society, and history, at all. Not even in American institutions like the American Universities of Cairo and Beirut. This lack may also be true throughout the Third World, and maybe even in some European countries. The point I am making is that to live in a world that is held in the grip of an extraordinarily unbound great power there is a vital need for knowing as much about its swirling dynamics as is humanly possible. And that, I believe, also includes commanding an excellent working command of the language, something few Arab leaders (as a case in point) possess.

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Grant Barrett