Offering a discussion on the crisis in Arab identity, this book talks about it means to be alienated from one's roots, and how to trace back those lines of history. The author describes the state of Arab malaise, and searches to understand how the Arab world arrived at a point of political and intellectual stagnation.

"Being Arab" is a clarion call, urging Arabs to closely examine their own history, to reject Western double standards and Islamism, and to take the future of the region into their own hands.