Taking the Arab Pulse

For a decade Shibley Telhami, a political scientist at the University of Maryland, has been conducting polls in six Arab countries: Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates. His book The World Through Arab Eyes couples those surveys with an intensive analysis of events in the region from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait through the Arab Spring. In the process, Telhami argues that Arabs do not have a static, unchanging identity. Arab identity, he shows, is actually a multilayered, constantly shifting thing, with individuals sometimes seeing themselves as Arabs first, sometimes identifying most closely with their home country, and sometimes giving precedence to their religion. Whatever layer is in the forefront, Telhami suggests, is the layer that at the moment seems most likely to preserve or restore Arab dignity.