Download or read book The Arabian Peninsula in Age of Oil written by John Calvert and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-10-21 with total page 87 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Arabian Peninsula in the Age of Oil examines the impact this valuable resource has had on the political and social development of the region.
Download or read book Twilight in the Desert written by Matthew R. Simmons and published by Wiley + ORM. This book was released on 2011-01-04 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twilight in the Desert reveals a Saudi oil and production industry that could soon approach a serious, irreversible decline. In this exhaustively researched book, veteran oil industry analyst Matthew Simmons draws on his three-plus decades of insider experience and more than 200 independently produced reports about Saudi petroleum resources and production operations. He uncovers a story about Saudi Arabias troubled oil industry, not to mention its political and societal instability, which differs sharply from the globally accepted Saudi version. Its a story that is provocative and disturbing, based on undeniable facts, but until now never told in its entirety. Twilight in the Desert answers all readers questions about Saudi oil and production industries with keen examination instead of unsubstantiated posturing, and takes its place as one of the most important books of this still-young century.
Download or read book Buraimi written by Michael Quentin Morton and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-05-09 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buraimi is an oasis in an otherwise bleak desert on the border between Oman and the UAE. In the early twentieth century, it shot to notoriety as oil brought the world's attention to this corner of the Arabian Peninsula, and the ensuing battle over energy resources between regional and global superpowers began. In this lively account, Michael Quentin Morton tells the story of how the power of oil and the conflicting interests of the declining British Empire and the United States all came to a head with the conflict between Great Britain and Saudi Arabia, shaping the very future of the Gulf states. The seeds of conflict over Buraimi were sown during the oil negotiations of 1933 in Jedda, where the international oil companies vied for control of the future industry in the Arabian Peninsula. As a result of lengthy discussions, including the efforts of men such as St John Philby and Ibn Saud himself, the Saudis granted an oil concession for Eastern Arabia without precisely defining the geographical limits of the area to be conceded. Matters came to a head in 1949 when Saudi Arabia made claim to the territory, and Great Britain, acting on behalf of Oman and Abu Dhabi, challenged the actions of the Saudis. Attempts at arbitration failed, and only one year before Britain's defeat over the Suez Canal, Britain expelled Saudi Arabia from the oasis. In the wake of Britain's withdrawal 'East of Suez' in the early 1970s, the dispute was apparently solved between Saudi Arabia and the UAE. But whilst the controversy dominated Anglo-Saudi relations for more than 30 years, it still casts its shadow across the Gulf today, threatening to expose the fragility of the West's ever-present dependency on the region for its supply of oil. Morton brings a range of historical figures to life, from the American oilmen arriving in steamy Jedda in the 1930s, to the rival sheikhs of Buraimi itself competing for power, wealth and allegiances as well as the great players in world politics: Churchill, Truman and Ibn Saud. This entertaining and thoroughly researched book is both a story of a decisive conflict in the history of Middle East politics and also of the great changes that the discovery of oil brought to this previously desolate land.
Download or read book The Dilemma of Development in the Arabian Peninsula written by Abdul Rahman Osama and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, first published in 1987 and by one of Saudi Arabia's most distinguished academics, reviews the experience of the Arab oil producers in social, economic and political development in the key period of the Seventies and Eighties. It is broadly pessimistic about the prospects for future development and sceptical about past achievements. It argues that the petro-bureaucracy' in the Arabian Peninsula has failed to establish the basic principles of effective development because it has been mesmerised by the vast oil revenues it has attempted to administer. The book suggests that in many respects the oil revenues have obstructed serious development because they have made the Arabian economies totally dependent on one expendable resource and this has made them too vulnerable to external pressures and interests. Furthermore, the oil revenues have encouraged fantasy and wishful thinking which have skewed the development process and stimulated pseudo-development. The book makes clear that until the petro-bureaucracy adopts a realistic approach to development there can be no prospect of real development in the Arabian Peninsula.
Download or read book Energy Kingdoms written by Jim Krane and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-08 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the discovery of oil in the 1930s, the Gulf monarchies—Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Bahrain—went from being among the world’s poorest and most isolated places to some of its most ostentatiously wealthy. To maintain support, the ruling sheikhs provide their subjects with boundless cheap energy, unwittingly leading to some of the highest consumption rates on earth. Today, as summertime temperatures set new records, the Gulf’s rulers find themselves caught in a dilemma: can they curb their profligacy without jeopardizing the survival of some of the world’s last absolute monarchies? In Energy Kingdoms, Jim Krane takes readers inside these monarchies to consider their conundrum. He traces the history of the Gulf states’ energy use and policies, looking in particular at how energy subsidies have distorted demand. Oil exports are the lifeblood of their political-economic systems—and the basis of their strategic importance—but domestic consumption has begun eating into exports while climate change threatens to render their desert region uninhabitable. At risk are the sheikhdoms’ way of life, their relations with their Western protectors, and their political stability in a chaotic region. Backed by rich fieldwork and deep knowledge of the region, Krane expertly lays out the hard choices that Gulf leaders face to keep their states viable.
Download or read book The Formation of Saudi Arabia written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-02-12 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading At the conclusion of World War I, a once promised unified Arab state, which was to include the modern Hejaz, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine/Israel, Jordan and Iraq, did not materialize. Instead, the territories were divided between the French and British, but the British did reward the Hashemites by putting local leaders on the thrones of Iraq and Jordan. In 1924, when the revolutionary government of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk declared Turkey a secular state and abolished the Caliphate, the Sharif (now King) declared himself Caliph, and it appeared that a new Arab-based Caliphate centered on Mecca would emerge. However, this was also not to be, because the Saudis had reformed their power base in central Arabia. While the First Saudi state had been shattered in 1818 by Muhammad Ali Pasha, in 1824 another branch of the Saudi Clan had captured Riyadh, making it the capital of their more cautious Second Saudi State. Their growth had been slow for some time, but they took advantage of the crumbling Ottoman Empire to consolidate power and in 1925 attacked the Hejaz. With that, the Saudis stormed Mecca and drove out the Hashemite Clan. Like the Hashemites, the Saudi family consisted of Arabs, but the family came from the Nejd, an area of the Arabian Peninsula to the east closer to the Persian Gulf. In the late 18th century, the ambitious Muhammed bin Saud, the head of the family and the Sultan of Nejd, allied himself with a theologian named Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792). Wahhab taught that Islam's weakened position (compared to the rising Christian powers of his era) was due to an internal weakness within the Islamic community. He taught that increasing numbers of Muslims had turned their backs on the teachings of the Prophet and had corrupted Islam with pagan influences. He was particularly scornful of Shi'a Islam or any practices that he did not see directly referenced within the Qur'an, and he sought to "purify" the religion and return it to its "fundamentals." Thus, Wahhabism is a form of fundamentalism that desires a return to the imagined purity of the past and a willingness to undertake dramatic steps to achieve it. As the process of consolidating the new Saudi state was still in progress, the course of Saudi Arabia's history changed with the discovery of oil, and today it is almost impossible to imagine Saudi Arabia without the vital resource. Not only does the country have 18 percent of the world's proven oil reserves and lead the world in exports, but in mid-2016, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that Saudi Arabia had overtaken the U.S. to become the world's largest oil producer. There was, however, a time when the country's finances were anything but stable and when three ministries were the extent of the government's formal institutions. This was not, in fact, so long ago either, as the modern state of Saudi Arabia is still a relatively young country, formally announced only in 1932. At that time, finances were precarious; its major sources of income were Muslim pilgrimage, including the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina; customs and taxes; and international aid and loans. These were also all dependent on the current international situation and the interests of foreign parties. An economic downturn, for example, depressed the number of pilgrims, while shifting interests of international parties could cause support to dry up with little notice. The Formation of Saudi Arabia: The History of the Arabian Peninsula's Unification and the Discovery of Oil traces the formation of the modern Saudi state, beginning with its 18th and 19th century predecessors, as well as the various efforts undertaken by its founders to nation build and secure the Saudi family's position of power.
Download or read book Arabian Time Machine written by Helga Graham and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No people have been propelled so fast through the centuries of history as the people of the Arab oil lands. Since biblical times life in the desert has been patriarchal and pastoral. Then, oil was discovered.
Download or read book The Dilemma of Development in the Arabian Peninsula written by Osama Abdul Rahman and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-07-07 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, first published in 1987 and by one of Saudi Arabia’s most distinguished academics, reviews the experience of the Arab oil producers in social, economic and political development in the key period of the Seventies and Eighties. It is broadly pessimistic about the prospects for future development and sceptical about past achievements. It argues that the ‘petro-bureaucracy’ in the Arabian Peninsula has failed to establish the basic principles of effective development because it has been mesmerised by the vast oil revenues it has attempted to administer. The book suggests that in many respects the oil revenues have obstructed serious development because they have made the Arabian economies totally dependent on one expendable resource and this has made them too vulnerable to external pressures and interests. Furthermore, the oil revenues have encouraged fantasy and wishful thinking which have skewed the development process and stimulated pseudo-development. The book makes clear that until the petro-bureaucracy adopts a realistic approach to development there can be no prospect of real development in the Arabian Peninsula.
Download or read book The Middle East Oil Decade and Beyond written by Gad G. Gilbar and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of fundamental aspects of the oil decade examines the influence of oil production, export and revenues on domestic, regional and international relations. It highlights the expansion of higher education in the Arab world, and the increase in demand for industrial and consumer goods.
Download or read book The Arabian Peninsula written by Derek Hopwood and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-07-24 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the Arabian Peninsula is the heartland of Islam and of the Arab world, for decades it did not receive the attention it deserves from scholars and writers. The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and the Middle East Centre of St Antony’s College, Oxford, jointly organized a series of seminars, culminating in a conference at which the papers in this volume (first published in 1972) were discussed. Together they constitute an authoritative statement of our present knowledge of several areas of the Peninsula, with particular emphasis on the Gulf States. Three chapters trace the history of Oman from pre-Islamic times to the recent past, and in so doing emphasize the theme of continuing conflict between sultan and imam. Other chapters examine the Gulf and the Peninsula from the standpoint of inter-Arab and of international relations. The third section of the book is devoted to a discussion of the increasing rate of social change in the area, and the final section deals with problems of oil and state and of economic development.
Download or read book Desert Kingdom written by Toby Craig Jones and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oil and water, and the science and technology used to harness them, have long been at the heart of political authority in Saudi Arabia. Oil’s abundance, and the fantastic wealth it generated, has been a keystone in the political primacy of the kingdom’s ruling family. The other bedrock element was water, whose importance was measured by its dearth. Over much of the twentieth century, it was through efforts to control and manage oil and water that the modern state of Saudi Arabia emerged. The central government’s power over water, space, and people expanded steadily over time, enabled by increasing oil revenues. The operations of the Arabian American Oil Company proved critical to expansion and to achieving power over the environment. Political authority in Saudi Arabia took shape through global networks of oil, science, and expertise. And, where oil and water were central to the forging of Saudi authoritarianism, they were also instrumental in shaping politics on the ground. Nowhere was the impact more profound than in the oil-rich Eastern Province, where the politics of oil and water led to a yearning for national belonging and to calls for revolution. Saudi Arabia is traditionally viewed through the lenses of Islam, tribe, and the economics of oil. Desert Kingdom now provides an alternative history of environmental power and the making of the modern Saudi state. It demonstrates how vital the exploitation of nature and the roles of science and global experts were to the consolidation of political authority in the desert.
Download or read book Oil States in the New Middle East written by Kjetil Selvik and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-07-16 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oil has been central to regime survival for oil states across the Arabian Peninsula and has been at the heart of their attempts to defuse the wave of Arab revolutions. However, in 2011 revolution hit Libya, the most oil dependent regime in the Middle East. The political storm winds that have swept this region have thrown into doubt the resilience of Arab rentier states, and highlight how the political effects of oil vary across the oil producing countries. Oil States in the New Middle East brings together leading experts to critically assess the centrality of oil and the relevance of Rentier State Theory in light of the post-2011 upheaval across the Middle East and North Africa. It combines overall reflections on the political dynamics in oil states with focused case investigations of individual countries. Taking as its starting point the centrality of oil in explanations of regime survival, the book analyses how the oil states have responded to and fared throughout the Arab popular upheavals, resulting in a critical assessment of the continued relevance of Rentier State Theory. While observers have asked how the uprisings varied between oil and non-oil states, this book turns the comparative focus inward, arguing for a more fine-grained understanding of the political effects of oil in different oil producing countries. This book would be of interest to students and scholars of Middle East, North Africa and Gulf Studies, Oil and Politics, as well as Comparative Politics and International Political Economy.
Download or read book Big Oil Man from Arabia written by Michael Sheldon Cheney and published by . This book was released on 1958 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Origins of the Saudi Arabian Oil Empire written by Nelson Robertson and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Saudi Arabia Today written by Peter Hobday and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 1978-01-01 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Casts light on the historical and economic development of Saudi Arabia, discussing ibn-Saud's efforts to unify the Arabian peninsula and the tremendous consequences of the discovery of oil and profiling the country's rulers and businessmen
Download or read book Oil Industrialization Development in the Arab Gulf States RLE Economy of Middle East written by Atif Kubursi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-05-15 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Were oil supplies everlasting and the demand for oil strong and continuous, economic diversification in the Gulf would be pointless. However oil reserves are finite and non-renewable and the world demand for oil from the Gulf region is simply not stable. Collectively the countries of the Gulf face the striking prospect that unless priorities and plans are set with care the gestation period of their economic development may be longer than the expected life of their hydrocarbon resources. This book examines just that threat. It considers the opportunities available to the Gulf states for accumulating sufficient productive capital in the non-oil sectors of their economy to offset the drawing down of oil reserves. The book pays particular attention to the possibilities of development through cooperation not only within the Gulf Cooperation Council but also within the larger Arab region and the Third World as a whole. It concludes with a critical review of the main challenges that these economies are facing and are likely to face in the near future with special emphasis on their major problems and failures. First published in 1984.
Download or read book The Impact of Oil Revenues on Arab Gulf Development written by M.S. El Azhary and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-05-09 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the price of oil fell in the eighties the pressures on the Arab Gulf States to speed up the diversification of their economies into non-oil sectors increased. This book, first published in 1984, examines this problem and many other issues connected with the impact of oil revenues on development in the Gulf States. It considers changing oil production policies and developments in other sectors of the economy including agriculture, industry and banking. It explores population problems, moves towards Gulf economic coordination and the impact of oil on society, culture and education. This book provides an assessment of just how much the region depends on oil for its economic prosperity and development and some indication of the enormous problems that would face the region should the demand for oil decease still further.
