In 2005, Al Shamshoon—an Arabized version of The Simpsons—debuted on an Egyptian satellite station. Pop-culture commentator Richard Poplak was so intrigued that he set off to uncover other examples of North American taste translated and reinterpreted for a Muslim audience. The result of this journey is a fast-paced and culturally savvy look at what happens to North American pop-culture when it is consumed and reinterpreted in the Muslim world—and what that says about how we are viewed by the hundreds of millions of young Muslims.

"A heroic feat of research, analysis, and on-the-ground reportage. ... It's a weird, wonderful world where ... pop is revered and high and low culture freely mingle. ... The Sheikh's Batmobile should shatter the Western stereotype of the Muslim world as repressive and stagnant."
—Jason McBride, Quill & Quire

"I would read Poplak if he wrote about watching paint dry. He is a gifted addition to the exploding and increasingly sloppy literary non-fiction genre. Dark, funny, self-deprecating and poetic, Poplak is a punk Graham Greene. … [He has] complete authority as an outsider absorbing American culture."
— Mary-Lou Zeitoun, Globe and Mail