America in An Arab Mirror: Images of America in Arabic Travel Literature

the long version

"This anthology presents travel essays by Arabic writers who have visited America in the one hundred years spanning 1895-1995. The view of America which emerges from these accounts is at once fascinating and illuminating, but never monolithic. The writers hail from a variety of viewpoints, regions, and backgrounds, so their descriptions of America differently engage with and revise Arab preconceptions of Americans and the West. The country figures as everything from the unchanging Other, the very antithesis of the Arab self, to the seductive female, to the Other who is both praiseworthy and reprehensible, Taken together, these well-written pieces constitute an important window into Arab-American relations."--BOOK JACKET.