Download or read book Inside the Kingdom written by Robert Lacey and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-10-15 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "It's all here-Islam, the family tree, a sea of oil and money to match, palace intrigue...This is high drama and an epic tale." -Tom Brokaw Though Saudi Arabia sits on one of the richest oil deposits in the world, it also produced fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers. In this immensely important book, journalist Robert Lacey draws on years of access to every circle of Saudi society giving readers the fullest portrait yet of a land straddling the worlds of medievalism and modernity. Moving from the bloody seizure of Mecca's Grand Mosque in 1979, through the Persian Gulf War, to the delicate U.S.-Saudi relations in a post 9/11 world, Inside the Kingdom brings recent history to vivid life and offers a powerful story of a country learning how not to be at war with itself.

Download or read book Kings of Arabia written by Harold Fenton Jacob and published by . This book was released on 1923 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lieutenant Colonel Harold Fenton Jacob (1866-1936) was an officer in the British Army, stationed primarily in Yemen at the turn of the 20th century. He served as British political agent at Dhala and chief political officer to the Aden Field Force. Between 1917 and 1920 he was an advisor on southwestern Arabian affairs to the British high commissioner in Egypt. The work presented here, Kings of Arabia, examines the history of the Ottoman Turkish presence in the Hejaz region of Arabia, but focuses mainly on the small Arab kingdoms of Yemen, most of which later became part of the British-controlled Aden Protectorate. The book provides detailed background on the history of Yemen from the 17th century until the aftermath of World War I, including information on the rulers of the Sherifate of Mecca and the Zaidi Imamate of Sanaa. It also recounts the Turkish and British attempts to dominate the region, especially the sea route to Asia through the Straits of Bab el Mandeb. The Ottoman Turkish presence in Yemen began in the early 16th century with the seizure of Aden and the Red Sea coast during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. However, after continued unrest in the interior, the Turks evacuated the region in 1630, leaving it in the hands of the Shiite Zaidi imams of Sanaa. Muhammad Ali, Viceroy of Egypt, established a presence in the region after he defeated the Wahhabis in Hejaz in the early 19th century. The Turks returned in 1849, establishing themselves in various cities and ports, where they remained until they surrendered to the British in 1918. Aden fell to the British in 1839. The Aden Protectorate was established at that time, and included the tribal kingdoms in the hinterland around the city that signed protection agreements with the British. The protectorate ceased to exist in 1963, and in 1967 the region declared independence and became known as the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen), which united with the North in 1990 to form present-day Yemen.

Download or read book Kings and Presidents written by Bruce Riedel and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2019-03-12 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An insider's account of the often-fraught U.S.-Saudi relationship Saudi Arabia and the United States have been partners since 1943, when President Roosevelt met with two future Saudi monarchs. Subsequent U.S. presidents have had direct relationships with those kings and their successors—setting the tone for a special partnership between an absolute monarchy with a unique Islamic identity and the world's most powerful democracy. Although based in large part on economic interests, the U.S.-Saudi relationship has rarely been smooth. Differences over Israel have caused friction since the early days, and ambiguities about Saudi involvement—or lack of it—in the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States continue to haunt the relationship. Now, both countries have new, still-to be-tested leaders in President Trump and King Salman. Bruce Riedel for decades has followed these kings and presidents during his career at the CIA, the White House, and Brookings. This book offers an insider's account of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, with unique insights. Using declassified documents, memoirs by both Saudis and Americans, and eyewitness accounts, this book takes the reader inside the royal palaces, the holy cities, and the White House to gain an understanding of this complex partnership.

Download or read book The Oil Kings written by Andrew Scott Cooper and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-09-11 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relying on a rich cache of previously classified notes, transcripts, cables, policy briefs, and memoranda, Andrew Cooper explains how oil drove, even corrupted, American foreign policy during a time when Cold War imperatives still applied, and tells why in the 1970s the U.S. switched its Middle East allegiance from the Shah of Iran to the Saudi royal family. Amid the oil shocks of the early 1970s, there was one man the U.S. could rely on: the Shah of Iran. The Shah sold us oil; we sold him weapons. But the U.S. and other industrialized economies could not tolerate repeated annual double digit increases in oil prices. During the 1976 election campaign, President Gerald Ford decided that he had to find a country that would break the OPEC monopoly and sell the U.S. oil more cheaply. On the advice of Treasury Secretary William Simon -- and against the advice of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger -- Ford made a deal to sell advanced weaponry to the Saudis in exchange for a more moderate price hike in oil. The Shah's economy was destabilized, and disaffected elements mobilized to overthrow him. The U.S. had embarked on a long relationship with the autocratic Saudi kingdom that continues to this day.

Download or read book Kings and Camels written by Grant C. Butler and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Kings of Saudi Arabia written by Source Wikipedia and published by University-Press.org. This book was released on 2013-09 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 32. Chapters: Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Fahd of Saudi Arabia, Faisal bin Turki bin Abdullah Al Saud, Faisal of Saudi Arabia, House of Saud, Ibn Saud, Khalid of Saudi Arabia, King of Saudi Arabia, Saud of Saudi Arabia. Excerpt: Abdullah bin Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman bin Faisal bin Turki bin Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Saud, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques (Arabic:, Najdi Arabic pronunciation: , born 1 August 1924) is the King of Saudi Arabia. He ascended to the throne on 1 August 2005 upon the death of his half-brother, King Fahd. Abdullah, like Fahd, was one of the many sons of Ibn Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia. (Abdullah's mother was Fahda bint Asi Al Shuraim, the eighth of Ibn Saud's 16 wives.) Abdullah held important political posts throughout most of his adult life. In 1961 as a young man, he became mayor of Mecca, his first public office. And, in 1962, he was appointed commander of the Saudi Arabian National Guard, a post he was still holding when he became king. He also served as deputy defense minister and was named crown prince when Fahd took the throne in 1982. After King Fahd suffered a serious stroke in 1995, Abdullah became the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia until claiming the throne a decade later. Abdullah is the sixth king of Saudi Arabia, following King Abdulaziz (Ibn Saud) (1932-53), King Saud (1953-64), King Faisal (1964-75), King Khalid (1975-82), and King Fahd (1982-2005). Upon ascending the throne in 2005, Abdullah named another half-brother, Sultan bin Abdulaziz, as the crown prince. According to a 2001 report, Abdullah "has four wives, seven sons, and 15 daughters." To placate Saudi Islamists, the king disallowed U.S. Iraq War forces to use bases in Saudi Arabia. The king has a personal fortune estimated at US$18 billion, making him the third wealthiest head of state in the world....

Download or read book Ibn Saud written by Barbara Bray and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-06-15 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ibn Saud grew to manhood living the harsh traditional life of the desert nomad, a life that had changed little since the days of Abraham. Equipped with immense physical courage, he fought and won, often with weapons and tactics not unlike those employed by the ancient Assyrians, a series of astonishing military victories over a succession of enemies much more powerful than himself. Over the same period, he transformed himself from a minor sheikh into a revered king and elder statesman, courted by world leaders such as Churchill and Roosevelt. A passionate lover of women, Ibn Saud took many wives, had numerous concubines, and fathered almost one hundred children. Yet he remained an unswerving and devout Muslim, described by one who knew him well at the time of his death in 1953 as “probably the greatest Arab since the Prophet Muhammad.” Saudi Arabia, the country Ibn Saud created, is a staunch ally of the West, but it is also the birthplace of Osama bin Laden and fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers. Saud’s kingdom, as it now stands, has survived the vicissitudes of time and become an invaluable player on the world’s political stage.

Download or read book Kings of Arabia written by Harold F. Jacob and published by . This book was released on 2007-09 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The History of Saudi Arabia written by A M Vasilev and published by Saqi. This book was released on 2014-05-22 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How has Saudi Arabia managed to maintain its Arab and Islamic values while at the same time adopting Western technology and a market economy? How have its hereditary leaders, who govern with a mixture of political pragmatism and religious zeal, managed to maintain their power? This comprehensive history of Saudi Arabia from 1745 to the present provides insight into its culture and politics, its powerful oil industry, its relations with its neighbours, and the ongoing influence of the Wahhabi movement. Based on a wealth of Arab, American, British, Western and Eastern European sources, this book will stand as the definitive account of the largest state on the Arabian peninsula.

Download or read book MBS written by Ben Hubbard and published by Crown. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A gripping, behind-the-scenes portrait of the rise of Saudi Arabia’s secretive and mercurial new ruler “Revelatory . . . a vivid portrait of how MBS has altered the kingdom during his half-decade of rule.”—The Washington Post Finalist for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Kirkus Reviews MBS is the untold story of how a mysterious young prince emerged from Saudi Arabia’s sprawling royal family to overhaul the economy and society of the richest country in the Middle East—and gather as much power as possible into his own hands. Since his father, King Salman, ascended to the throne in 2015, Mohammed bin Salman has leveraged his influence to restructure the kingdom’s economy, loosen its strict Islamic social codes, and confront its enemies around the region, especially Iran. That vision won him fans at home and on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley, in Hollywood, and at the White House, where President Trump embraced the prince as a key player in his own vision for the Middle East. But over time, the sheen of the visionary young reformer has become tarnished, leaving many struggling to determine whether MBS is in fact a rising dictator whose inexperience and rash decisions are destabilizing the world’s most volatile region. Based on years of reporting and hundreds of interviews, MBS reveals the machinations behind the kingdom’s catastrophic military intervention in Yemen, the bizarre detention of princes and businessmen in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton, and the shifting Saudi relationships with Israel and the United States. And finally, it sheds new light on the greatest scandal of the young autocrat’s rise: the brutal killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul, a crime that shook Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Washington and left the world wondering whether MBS could get away with murder. MBS is a riveting, eye-opening account of how the young prince has wielded vast powers to reshape his kingdom and the world around him. Praise for MBS “Saudi Arabia is testing the extremes of tradition and innovation, of half-baked visions and intensifying repression. Ben Hubbard’s authoritative reporting on the inner sanctums of its society offers a perfect synthesis of journalism and area expertise: the best description we have at the moment of why things happen as they do in the kingdom.”—Robert D. Kaplan, author of The Return of Marco Polo’s World

Download or read book A History of Saudi Arabia written by Madawi al-Rasheed and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-07-11 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Saudi Arabia is a wealthy and powerful country which wields influence in the West and across the Islamic world. Yet it remains a closed society. Its history in the twentieth century is dominated by the story of state formation. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Ibn Sa'ud fought a long campaign to bring together a disparate people from across the Arabian peninsula. In 1932 the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was born. Madawi al-Rasheed traces its extraordinary history from the age of emirates in the nineteenth century, through the 1990 Gulf War, to the present day. She fuses chronology with analysis, personal experience with oral histories, and draws on local and foreign documents to illuminate the social and cultural life of the Saudis. This is a rich and rewarding book which will be invaluable to students, and to all those trying to understand the enigma of Saudi Arabia.

Download or read book Ancient Kings of Arabia written by Andrew Crichton and published by Jovian Press. This book was released on 2017-11-28 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of Arabia naturally divides itself into three periods, the Ancient, the Military, and the Modern. The first carries us down to the age of Mohammed, and is called by the Arabs the Times of Ignorance. The second includes the wars of the Saracens, and the empire of the caliphs. The third embraces the events from the fall of the caliphate to the present day. The native writers who treat of the first period all flourished, as has been observed, posterior to the era of the Prophet...

Download or read book The Son King written by Madawi Al-Rasheed and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-01 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2018, journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by Saudi regime operatives, shocking the international community and tarnishing the reputation of Muhammad bin Salman, the kingdom's young, reformist crown prince. Domestically, bin Salman's reforms have proven divisive, and his adoption of populist nationalism and fierce repression of diverse critical voices--religious scholars, feminists and dissident youth--have failed to silence a vibrant and well-connected Saudi society. Madawi Al-Rasheed lays bare the world of repression behind the crown prince's reforms. She dissects the Saudi regime's propaganda and progressive new image, while also dismissing Orientalist views that despotism is the only pathway to stable governance in the Middle East. Charting old and new challenges to the fragile Saudi nation from the kingdom's very inception, this blistering book exposes the dangerous contradictions at the heart of the Son King's Saudi Arabia.

Download or read book Lord of Arabia Ibn Saud written by Harold Courtenay Armstrong and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Newly reissued, Lord of Arabia is the famous biography of Ibn Saud, King of Saudi Arabia, who continues to cst his shadow over the Middle East today. In this important study, the author reveals many of the family traditions and deeply-held principles that form the unwritten foundation of present-day Saudi Arabia and its neighbours. It ably recreates the King's life through key principal first-hand authorities, recording invaluable historical detail. -- Back cover.

Download or read book Salman s Legacy written by Madawi Al-Rasheed and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-01 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: King Salman of Saudi Arabia began his rule in 2015 confronted with a series of unprecedented challenges. The dilemmas he has faced are new and significant, from leadership shuffles and falling oil prices to regional and international upheaval. Salman's Legacy interrogates this era and assesses its multiple social, political, regional and international challenges. Whether Salman's policies have saved the kingdom from serious upheaval is yet to be seen, but no doubt a new kingdom is emerging. This book offers historical and contemporary insights into the various problems that persist in haunting the Saudi state. Madawi Al-Rasheed brings together well-established historians and social scientists with deep knowledge of Saudi Arabia--its history, culture and contemporary politics--to reflect on Salman's kingdom. They trace both policy continuities and recent ruptures that have perplexed observers of Saudi Arabia. This lucid and nuanced analysis invites serious reflection on the Saudi leadership's capacity to withstand the recent challenges, especially those that came with the Arab uprisings. At stake is the future of a country that remains vital to regional stability, international security, and the global economy.

Download or read book Lord of Arabia Ibn Saud written by Harold Courtenay Armstrong and published by . This book was released on 1954 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Desert King written by David Armine Howarth and published by . This book was released on 1964 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biography of the son of an exiled royal family who set out in 1901 to recapture his father's empire. His journey led him instead to the discovery of the world's largest oil fields, which brought him a fortune of incredible proportions.