After Savagery: Gaza, Genocide, and the Illusion of Western Civilization

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Written at the time of a genocide, After Savagery reveals the ethical bankruptcy of "Western philosophy" and how it undergirds the erasure of the colonized.

a cold, lifeless number representing entire communities crushed under the weight of settler colonialism. At a time of global outrage against a livestreamed genocide, politicians, well-respected scholars, and influential celebrities remain perplexed by the notion of Palestinian humanity.

With lyrical and lucid fury, Hamid Dabashi exposes the racist roots of Western philosophy, demanding that readers overcome its pernicious phantom of relevance. Rather than perceiving the West as giving a carte blanche to Israel to commit atrocities in Palestine, Dabashi insists that Israel must be understood as the "quintessence of the West."

If Israel is the West and the West is Israel, then Palestine is the world and the world is Palestine. Holding on to glimmers from revolutionary works of literature and film, Dabashi argues, in grief and love, that the wretched of the earth need poetry after barbarism-and that Palestine is the site of a liberated imagination.

Reviews

Reading Dabashi is like going for an extended coffee with a very smart friend.
Vijay Prashad, author of The Poorer Nations

The grand clash of civilizations and ideologies will increasingly take place in the West, with such writers and intellectuals as Dabashi.
The Guardian

A leading light in Iranian studies.
The Chronicle of Higher Education

Author Bio

Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Dabashi has written more than two dozen books, edited four, and contributed chapters to many more. Among his most recent books are On Edward Said: Remembrance of Things Past (Haymarket, 2020), The End of Two Illusions: Islam after the West (University of California Press, 2022), and Iran in Revolt: Revolutionary Aspirations in a Post-Democratic World (Haymarket, 2025). His books and articles have been translated into numerous languages, including Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian.