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Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia
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.
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.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published November 8, 2010
About the author
Toby Craig Jones
3 books4 followersToby Craig Jones is a historian of the modern Middle East at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Jones received his BA in 1994 and MA in 1998 from Auburn University.
From 2004 to 2006 Jones worked as the Persian Gulf political analyst for the International Crisis Group. In 2006, Jones received his PhD in Middle Eastern History from Stanford University.
From 2008 to 2009, Jones was a fellow at the Oil, Energy, and Middle East project at Princeton University. Currently an associate professor of history at Rutgers University, his general field of research concerns questions of energy and the history of science & technology in the modern middle east. He advises on modern Middle East history, history of technology, environmental history, and global history.
From 2004 to 2006 Jones worked as the Persian Gulf political analyst for the International Crisis Group. In 2006, Jones received his PhD in Middle Eastern History from Stanford University.
From 2008 to 2009, Jones was a fellow at the Oil, Energy, and Middle East project at Princeton University. Currently an associate professor of history at Rutgers University, his general field of research concerns questions of energy and the history of science & technology in the modern middle east. He advises on modern Middle East history, history of technology, environmental history, and global history.
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March 25, 2015
This book is as advertised. It is an exposition of the central importance of natural resource extraction and environmental manipulation in the calculus of the Saudi regime's hold on power in the Arabian Peninsula. More specifically, this book is an in-depth look at the key position occupied by the Eastern Province in the Saudi power structure, the province with most of the country's oil and water resources - and most of its Shia population. Jones argues that the salient factor in the royal family's grip on power - above even its alliance with Wahhabi clerics or alliance with the United States - is its domination and control of the country's natural resources. Although oil's importance in this equation is obvious, Jones' more compelling look at the use (and abuse) of water resources in the Arabian Peninsula by the royal family is very intriguing and enlightening.
The text begins somewhat dryly but gets more interesting as the reader moves through the narrative. Jones' segment on the history of the Shia minority in the Third Saudi State is particularly enlightening and its certainly worth an examination. He follows up on this history with a look at the rise of Wahhabi reaction in Saudi as well as the royal family's co-optation of the rhetoric of Islamic fundamentalism in order to boost its credibility with its subjects.
The cons of this text are primarily three, in my opinion. First, this is not a generalized history of Saudi Arabia. Instead, it is focused on a look at two specific variables in the Saudi power structure (oil & water) and the chronology of the narrative is less than consistent, sometimes even disorienting. Second, there is an absence of any useful maps (at least in the online version I read) which is especially annoying in a book that is so focused on geography and geology. Third, Jones should have hired a better editor. He has a very noticeable vice of repeating points or statements - sometimes almost verbatim - he makes earlier in the text.
The text begins somewhat dryly but gets more interesting as the reader moves through the narrative. Jones' segment on the history of the Shia minority in the Third Saudi State is particularly enlightening and its certainly worth an examination. He follows up on this history with a look at the rise of Wahhabi reaction in Saudi as well as the royal family's co-optation of the rhetoric of Islamic fundamentalism in order to boost its credibility with its subjects.
The cons of this text are primarily three, in my opinion. First, this is not a generalized history of Saudi Arabia. Instead, it is focused on a look at two specific variables in the Saudi power structure (oil & water) and the chronology of the narrative is less than consistent, sometimes even disorienting. Second, there is an absence of any useful maps (at least in the online version I read) which is especially annoying in a book that is so focused on geography and geology. Third, Jones should have hired a better editor. He has a very noticeable vice of repeating points or statements - sometimes almost verbatim - he makes earlier in the text.
Displaying 1 of 1 review