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Occidentalism is a term for stereotyped and sometimes dehumanizing views on the so-called Western world, including Europe, the United States, and Australia. The term was popularized by Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit in their book Occidentalism: the West in the Eyes of its Enemies (2004). The term is an inversion of Orientalism, Edward Said’s label for stereotyped Western views of the East. A number of earlier books had also used the term, sometimes with different meanings.

In a departure from Buruma and Margalit's negative use of the term, Bonnett argues in The Idea of the West (2004) that both occidentalism and 'the West' are, in large part, non-Western inventions. They are employed and deployed, sometimes with very positive connotations, to develop distinct, non-Western, traditions of modernity.

See also

• Arabist
• Chinoiserie
• Colonialism
• Dhimmi
• Japonism