Rating: 
Summary: Broad Strokes of the Brush
Review: I have known Arab families for more than a decade, and I am an American, hence I found Patai's work insightful, but also unsettling. A reviewer pointed out that people tend to be much the same everywhere. This has also been my direct experience with Arab people. Patai has generalized Arab culture and painted with a broad brush in order to explain, essentially, the phenomenon of Islamism and the failure of Arabs states to admit Westernization.Patai draws several conclusions, largely from the writings of Westernized Arabs. Among these are work-avoidance, over-emotionalism, over-rhetoricism, and atemporality. But the Arabs I have known are industrious, restrained, concise, and punctual. So where's the beef? The reader may assume that Patai is describing ordinary Arab folks, but he is really explaining the collective behavior of Arab governments; many of his examples are culled from official transcripts of heads-of-state. I daresay Islam has a profound effect on the world-view of its believers, but most Arabs are cagey enough to look out for number one, as we do. And when has the behavior of government ever coincided with the wishes of its own citizens? Does ours? My conclusion is that "The Arab Mind" is useful to understand Arab diplomacy, but less so the average person in the shuq.
Rating: 
Summary: Arab Mind? Can there be One?
Review: I lived in Jordan for two and a half years and read 'The Arab Mind' while submersed in the culture. I can't imagine a scholar of Arab culture would suggest such a bold title as 'The Arab Mind'. That is tantamount to suggesting there is a 'Western Mind'. Do Americans think like the French? Hardly. The book is good as long as you keep this in mind. There is no consistant view of the world eminating from Arabia. All one needs to do is look at the Arab League. A group of disfunctional Arab countries that barely can agree on where the sun sets at the end of the day. Again, there are good points in the book. But beware there is no panacea here. Don't take this book as gospel.
Rating: 
Summary: Experience tends to validate the observations of this book
Review: I took this book to Baghdad for my military assignment and left it there with friends who continue to use it to help inform their experiences. The book helped me understand what I was seeing with my own eyes and helped me avoid mis-steps that probably would have been misinterpreted. The book rang true with my experiences and helped me understand the Iraqi people, who I found to be generally good and noble. This books is not the be-all and end-all for Arab cultural understanding, but it seems to be an excellent jumping-off point. Westerners in Iraq "got points" from the Iraqis by merely TRYING to undertand their culture. Empathy, compassion and RESPECT go a long way in any culture, and certainly for the Iraqis.
Rating: 
Summary: Racism Masquerades as Anthropology
Review: I was assigned to read this book about 20 years ago, in college, as an example of a book that should not be taken at face value due to the biases, errors and outright racism it contains. Based on my own years of experience living in Arab countries, I can confirm that the prejudices and errors are rampant. Might as well say that all Americans are named Chuck, wear baseball hats and ride skateboards while shooting their guns. I was appalled to learn that the US goverment is using it as a manual for how to deal with Arabs. No wonder they've messed up so badly!
Rating:
Summary: direct hit!
Review: In a distinctions from most of other reviewers, I do live in the ME, and I was stunned how closely this book follows the reality. I was fascinated by the sharp-eyedness with which R. Patai caught the facts and sharp-mindness with which he analyzed them. Having read the book, I feel I understand better what is going on here, in the ME, and why, unfortunately, it is going these specific ways. This book reveals the entire strange world of Mediterranean everyday's philosophy. I'll avoid listing specific examples, which unescapably will give a political scent to this review, but I do have some and only after reading the book I began to understand them.
Of course, each book that deals with a definite nation may be called a racist one and no book may fully account for the entire variety of 250 million individuals, but, as a bottom line, this book looks very, very convincing.
Rating:
Summary: A work to be grappled with
Review: Let's pretend, for a minute, that a gentleman had written a book called "The Negro Mind," and that in this book he argued that Arfican American child-rearing practices, sexual attitudes, mental composition, and culture predisposed them to a certain degree of economic backwardness. We would probably be justified in calling the author of such a book a racist. But nobody is calling Raphael Patai a racist. His book is widely read, even revered. Many have subscribed to Patai's view that there is something deeply wrong with the Arab psyche and character. After all, only a deeply troubled people could have wrought the horrors of September 11th. Bin Laden, Mohamed Atta, Ayman Zawahiri-- these men appear to many Americans as living (or, in the case of Atta, dead) proof of Patai's dismal thesis. That is why this book has to be taken seriously. It represents an accurate reflection of what the vast majority of Americans think of the Arabs. If it is wrong, it has to be countered in a serious, scholarly manner, and not with the dismissive wave of the hand that most Arabs give it. Only by meeting the author on his own terms and demonstrating why his argument is racist--and it is unbelievably so--can such works be put to rest once and for all. Of course any argument that claims that a people have an "essential" nature is wrong. We are all human beings, we all want the same thing. Arabs are no different from Alabamans. The fact that one has to even say this is unfortunate indeed, but that's the world we live in. So, I would encourage every Arab and thinking person to buy this book, and then sharpen your pencils and very calmly and deliberately set out to demolish its arguments.
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Summary: Non-Arab Review of Arab Scholars
Review: Patai did a superb job in writing this book. His use of examples of personal experiences and the quotation of Arabic Scholarly sources guarantees a NON-RACIST study of the Arabs. This is a book best read at a slow steady pace, digesting what the author has to say. It offers food for thought and leaves one to wonder what he would say if he were still alive. Going back to the descriptions and examples used in the book, how can anyone call it racist when the facts are clearly demonstrated. For example, Patai presents the discussion on words as wishfull thinking. Can anyone forget "Baghdad Bob" saying there were no US troops in Iraq?
Rating:
Summary: Part of being an anthrpologist is not being ethnocentric.
Review: Patai is no more a balanced anthropolgist than a snake is a mammal. This book presents the culture of the Middle East as a singular one. As you can see from the sample pages, this is the premise of the book and is an inaccurate way to frame the Middle East of the past, present and its future development. For example, Patai says that North African Arab nations are culturally severed from sub-saharan Africa and the "arab mind" thinks of the world as having one Arab nation rather than a number of Arab countries. In reality, *many* North African Arabs feel culturally tied their southern African neighbors and there is a definite emphasis on being proud of one's own country within the Middle East - generally even more than having a loyalty to the presence of a singular Arab nation. If you want to know about the Arab mind, ask an Arab what s/he thinks and feels rather than wasting your money to hear it from someone who cannot comprehend the world beyond their own social construct.
Rating:
Summary: Stereotyped Book!
Review: Patai is stereotyped. The examples he gives are mainly on Egyptians (not all are from illitirate villages), muslims. Remember they are africans too. what about Asia and the middle east? Patai gives few examples. This is not enough to judge an entire Arab culture. Patai seems to have forgotten about the Druze, Christians, Orthodox and Arab Jews. Not forgetting the Berbers and Kurds. In this book he mixes arabic with Islamic culture. Arabic culture existed quite long before Islam.
Rating:
Summary: Lessons From the Past
Review: Readers may want to skip through some of the first 300 pages of this book. The basic theme of the book is that there is a common Arab mind among those who are Arabic speakers. They share a common idea of unity. To put it in basic terms, this common idea is that the Bedouin life is idealized. Men are more highly valued than women and have more rights. Exaggerative speech (threats) is a substitution for action. And unity to the group is highly prized. So when conflicts break out, mediation is necessary. If one had read the chapters which discuss the above, one might wonder why a US Army Colonel would write such a raving foreward to the 2002 edition. On might wonder what the above has to do with the events which have shaped our lives over the last couple of years. Then one would come to page 270 Patai begins to discuss the complacency of the Arab mind over the last millenium (a mind which idealizes Bedouism). On to page 309 where Patai records an anonymous critic who wrote: " Western colonialism is the single cause of ignorance, poverty, and sickness; Western colonialism alone is responsible for the diseases rampant is Arab lands, and the bloody tragedy called Palestine." This is a lesson from the past to be learned. And it is a two-edged lesson. Recently I spoke with an acquaitance of mine who is French and asked why the French did not share the US enthusiasm for the Iraqi War. In a word she replied: Algeria. Patai points out the deep inroads of French culture upon North Africa. History shows the expense and results of the French excursion.
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