REEL BAD ARABS is a groundbreaking book that dissects a slanderous cinematic history. The films examined here date from cinema's earliest days to contemporary Hollywood blockbusters that feature machine-gun wielding, bomb-exploding "evil" Arabs.

Award-winning film authority Jack G. Shaheen, noting that only Native Americans have been more relentlessly smeared on the silver screen, painstakingly makes his case that "Arab" has remained Hollywood's shameless shorthand for "bad guy," long after the movie industry has shifted its portrayal of other minority groups.

In this comprehensive study of nearly 1,000 films, arranged alphabetically in such chapters as "Villains," "Sheikhs," "Cameos," and "Cliffhangers," Shaheen documents the tendency to portray Muslim Arabs as Public Enemy #1; brutal, heartless, uncivilized "others" bent on terrorizing civilized Westerners.