The House of Saud

by David Holden, Richard Johns

Dust Jacket Present, Tight Binding, Limited Chipping or Tears to Edges, Limited Markings (Back Page of Book), No Creasing

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Middle East, Biography

569 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

David Holden, the Sunday Times journalist.

David[2spaces]Holden

Reviews

[Tim Pendry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book takes the story of the House of Saud and of Saudi Arabia only up to 1979 and Juhaiman bin Muhammed Utaibi's crazed attempt to seize the shrine at Mecca but it remains valuable.

The authors seemed to think in 1980 that the 'regime' had little chance of long term survival, yet here we are, thirty five years later, with the Kingdom still an arbiter, if not the arbiter, of much Middle Eastern politics despite intensifying liberal distaste for its system.

The book falls into two natural parts - an exciting narrative history that takes us from the origins of the Saudi State to the removal of King Saud and then a much more plodding story of the 1960s and 1970s that, at times, is like reading Keesing's Contemporary Archives.

The early narrative history (and perhaps the story of the attempted seizure of the shrine towards the end) now seem more relevant than the tortuous business of becoming an oil power and finding some way to solve the Palestiniam problem (a failure) without destroying the global economy and inviting US military intervention (a success).

I have never liked the primitive demonisation of the Kingdom which tends to come from rather thick ideological fanatics whose hysteria is carefully fanned by the Israeli lobby but it is clear that the Dynasty has had to learn by doing in an amazingly short period of time and that this has inevitably meant errors of judgment.

The charge of Saudi Arabia being a wahhabi fanatic regime has never really stood up. It is a Government that took modernisation rather for granted up until 1979 and then found that it had to row back towards traditionalism in the subsequent decades precisely because of the shock of the attack on the Holy Places.

What the book does not tell us is what happened next as the US and the Saudis found common cause against Communism in the Reagan era and both jointly made dreadful mistakes that were still being compounded as late as last year (2014).

It is not Saudi Arabia that stands as 'villain' here but a somewhat disturbing dialectic between a US that has morphed into its own form of ideological fanaticism under the fateful gaze of the players in its increasingly plutocratic domestic politics and a Kingdom trying to manage traditionalism and consistently failing because it is not dealing with its central core.

This central core is not what it appears to be - that is, some religious revelation - but a sustained revolt by traditionalists whose essential ideology is anti-imperialist and anti-Western and which is now fuelled by hundreds of thousands of disenfranchised and poor young men (and women). The female commitment to radical traditionalism was there in Mecca in 1979 and it is still clearly present in the story of Islamic State - a very inconvenient truth to liberatory liberal feminists. Nothing is ever simple in the Middle East.

To read the early narrative in this book is to understand better the roots of the current crisis - the betrayals of Arab aspirations by an arrogant British imperialism, the shift of a people who could know serious hunger as late as the 1940s into the super-wealthy without the time to prepare and the failure of the US to maintain its own anti-imperialist stance after 1945 and become a tail wagged by a Congressional dog on a tight Zionist lead.

In this context, the achievement of the House of Saud in managing to survive, modernise the Arabian Peninsula (albeit inefficiently) and avoid destabilising the Western economy in which it has its own portfolio investment stake is more remarkable than the failures.

Western liberal fanaticism, directed at pushing this elite, whose alleged corruption is not always what it appears to be when one sees how funds are disbursed to feudal followers in order to maintain stability, deeper into a hole dug by modernisers and traditionalist loons alike, may be a major own goal for the West.

The time when a democratic revolution would have handed over the Kingdom to secular modernisers whether socialist or Baathist is over. A bungled military coup in the 1960s simply showed just how under-developed the country was at that time. This coup might not have been pro-Western but it would have been 'manageable' as most revolutionary regimes became manageable in the subsequent decades.

What might erupt now with a standard issue colour revolution, not just as Sunni traditionalism but Shia rage at their historic oppression (a major error of judgment by the dynasty for half a century), would simply turn this country into another blood-soaked Syria and then probably spread to the other Gulf States. The effect on our economies would be interesting to say the least.

The Yemen has already got to the point where US Embassy personnel are having to scuttle ignominiously and the apparent victors are no friends of the Kingdom or the West. So many opportunities have been lost in a confluence of incompetencies and malignities but the Saudis themselves are only one part of the problem and not the worst of it by any means. Look to our own elected and career officials before throwing stones at Saudi windows.

In a sense, we Western liberals (the ones with brains instead of hearts on sleeves) really have nowhere to go now except to hope that the Dynasty remains strong enough to reform in the general direction of a Muslim rule of law and that it has finally learned its lesson about the sort of people it throws money at.

One model for understanding what has happened is that of the barbarian and the empire. The radical traditionalists are steppe barbarians (not far from the reality insofar as their extremism comes from a nomadic Iron Age base) and Riyadh is Rome or Chang'an under the Tang.

There are only three strategies in such cases - buy the bad guys off, crush the bad guys with punitive expeditions or duck and dive between the two and suck the barbarians into civilisation. The first is what the Saudis have had to do, more than they should, because of their limited population resources and administrative capacity. The third is what they should have done or perhaps are trying to do even now but it takes time and time is not what the dim-wits in Congress or the liberal media are going to give them.

The second option would require the massive intervention of the West as not much more than Saudi Arabia's political mercenaries (more so than was tried in Afghanistan, arming Saudi fanatics using Saudi money). The political risks of this for Western Governments can be seen in the hysteria of its populations at a few European shooting incidents. The killers genuinely believe they are merely taking the war home but that is another story.

There is not much more to say other than that armchair whiners about wahhabis should start reading books like this and try to understand the history of and constraints within the Saudi polity. By all means encourage liberal reform but accept that this is the devil we have come to know and that our economies and security require the Kingdom's survival.

A Saudi anti-traditionalist middle class is already emerging and it is increasingly managing to develop an incipient Saudi nationalism alongside a desire for liberal change. In time, this class will be the decider of fates and this is where it will get interesting.

Either the House of Saud will follow the path of the British Monarchy which it so admires and transfer authority to the population in a series of calculated steps or some split in the ruling order at some stage in the future will trigger the classic stages of a bloody revolution - the nice liberals soon being eaten up by the less nice radicals.

We'll see but now is not the time to destabilise the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - not unless you are a radical liberal with the mental capacity of a bath sponge.

[Mohamed Gohary · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is a great account that connects lots of events and characters that we always hear about together in one book. Great work and much effort done to achieve such a book that starts with the capture of Riyadh by Al Saud till the very early eighties. It's a tragedy the death of the author for whatever causes it might be. Unfortunately for us as his presence could have urged him to write a sequel to it specially after the time has changed and the great events that happened like the 2 Gulf Wars, the 911 incident and the rising acts of terrorism in the Kingdom.

[Bilal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book!

[Zainab · Rating 5 out of 5]

critically important

[Aqeel Haider · Rating 4 out of 5]

#BookReview
#Nonfiction
𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙃𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙎𝙖𝙪𝙙 by 𝘿𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙙 𝙃𝙤𝙡𝙙𝙚𝙣 & 𝙍𝙞𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙙 𝙅𝙤𝙝𝙣𝙨
(The Rise and Rule of the Most Powerful Dynasty in the Arab World)
The book is very well written load with information. Abdullah bin Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman bin Saud, known as ibn Saud, was a descendant of the Durra nomadic tribe that migrated from Bahrain. His forefathers settled in Diriya, a modern-day suburb of Riyadh, KSA.
This book aptly discusses the rivalries within in family. King Faisal vs Saud bin Abdullah Aziz the 2nd King. King Faisal has Coup with another enigma Pan Arab Nationalism by Gamel Abdul Nasser's Arab Marxist revolution.
The book is lengthy and needs deliberate time to complete it. It covers the formation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to King Fahad times in the 1980s.
#Recommended
#Thanks

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

The House of Saud is a thorough account of how Ibn Saud and his family became the dominant rulers in the tribal landscape of Saudi Arabia and built the Arab Kingdom. This book looks at the rise of oil and the importance of the Kingdom to the world. In addition, it looks at Saudi Arabia’s influence in both OPEC and the Arab world vis a vis the Israel Palestine conflict. Familiar faces like Saddam Hussien, The Shah and Asad pop up throughout the telling of this narrative. While written in 1981 there is a great deal of good information in this book on the early kingdom. Very well written and thoughtful analysis taking you inside the debates of the royal family, especially between Feisal and Saud. If you are interested in middle eastern history, you will not be disappointed.

[Wilte · Rating 2 out of 5]

The history of Saudi Arabia, from its inception around 1902 until 1981. Starts interesting but bogs down in minutiae about events in the 1970s.

“In the final analysis, then the sale of senior and influential commoner is subordinate to any princeling Neither proven ability nor status achieved through performance, had outweighs royal prerogative.” p536

[Jim Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since the book was published in 1980 there would be updated volumes needed to be read.But his recounting up till then is excellent.And understanding the past surely helps us understand the present especially in that complicated culture in that complex part of the world.

[Mckenzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nyc

[Peter]

On page 15, we have: 'Survival in a naturally hostile environment was, after all, the first and necessary aim of bedouin life, so it was essential to have a leader who seemed to have God, or luck, on his side.' It would be reassuring to know that from this argument, Theresa May and Boris Johnson did not draw inspiration for their immigration and citizenship, and energy conversion policies respectively.

[Sharon Beers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and enlightening detail about Abdul Aziz al Saud, his descendents, and their impact on Saudi Arabia and the world in
the 20th century.

[Linda Powless]

A book that was written in the 70's that identifies all the players in the Mideast