Kipling, the Orient, and Orientals: “Orientalism” Reoriented?

Rudyard Kipling and Edward Said are influential figures in reconstructing Western attitudes to the East. Kipling’s comments on the “East” outside India, however, show a different picture from Said’s Orientalism paradigm of negative portrayals of the Orient, which included Kipling as a typical Orientalist supremacist. Kipling emphasized threats from China rather than from the Muslim world. Kipling also had a range of positive comments on Burma, Japan, and Tibet, reflecting a common Buddhist substratum that Kipling seems to have appreciated. Consequently, both the perception of Kipling and the application of Said’s paradigm need adjustment and reorientation.