Arabia

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.

Long before Muhammed preached the religion of Islam, the inhabitants of his native Arabia had played an important role in world history as both merchants and warriors Arabia and the Arabs provides the only up-to-date, one-volume survey of the region and its peoples, from prehistory to the coming of Islam Using a wide range of sources - inscriptions, poetry, histories, and archaeological evidence - Robert Hoyland explores the main cultural areas of Arabia, from ancient Sheba in the south, to the deserts and oases of the north. He then examines the major themes of *the economy *society *religion *art, architecture and artefacts *language and literature *Arabhood and Arabisation The volume is illustrated with more than 50 photographs, drawings and maps.

A riveting account of a landmark expedition that left only one survivor, now back in print for the first time in decades. Arabia Felix is the spellbinding true story of a scientific expedition gone disastrously awry. On a winter morning in 1761 six men leave Copenhagen by sea—a botanist, a philologist, an astronomer, a doctor, an artist, and their manservant—an ill-assorted band of men who dislike and distrust one another from the start. These are the members of the Danish expedition to Arabia Felix, as Yemen was then known, the first organized foray into a corner of the world unknown to Europeans. The expedition made its way to Turkey and Egypt, by which time its members were already actively seeking to undercut and even kill one another, before disappearing into the harsh desert that was their destination. Nearly seven years later a single survivor returned to Denmark to find himself forgotten and all the specimens that had been sent back ruined by neglect. Based on diaries, notebooks, and sketches that lay unread in Danish archives until the twentieth century, Arabia Felix is a tale of intellectual rivalry and a comedy of very bad manners, as well as an utterly absorbing adventure. Arabia Felix includes 33 line drawings and maps.

Introduces the geography, history, economy, cultures, and people of Saudi Arabia.

‘A wonderful, rushing, crowded, enlightening voyage . . . A book which, in its ingenious understanding, its acceptance of a very imperfect world, and its energetic and constant fascination with human variety, should do a great deal to dispel the easiest and therefore the most prolific paranoid deception which the Western imagination has now fabricated in its desperate attempt to avoid facing reality’ Angus Wilson, Observer ‘A gem of a book, full of events and people and philosophy’ Sunday Telegraph ‘With an eye for the striking scene and entertaining incident he combines a perceptiveness of deeper realities that makes Arabia more than an amusing travellers’ journal’ Daily Telegraph ‘A very enjoyable book . . . It is racy and entertaining travel writing’ Cosmopolitan ‘The advent of a new travel writer of the first rank is an occasion to celebrate. Such a discovery is Jonathan Raban, whose Arabia is a tour de force’ Yorkshire Post

Saudi Arabia Mineral, Mining Sector Investment and Business Guide - Strategic Information and Regulations

This monograph examines the emergence and progress of an Islamist threat in Saudi Arabia and the simultaneous development of other forces for political change, and assesses the strategic situation in the Kingdom in light of the regional war on terrorism.

In 1964 Faisal bin Abdul Aziz became king of a country holding a quarter of the world's oil reserves, also home to Mecca and Medina. He was called 'the most powerful Arab ruler in centuries'. Eleven years later, in front of television cameras, his nephew shot him at point-blank range. In this authoritative biography, Alexei Vassiliev tells the story of a pious, cautious and resolute leader who steered Saudi Arabia through a minefield of domestic problems, inter-Arab relations and the decline of Soviet influence in the Middle East. King Faisal maintained ties with both Egypt and the United States through two Arab - Israeli wars and the 1973 Arab oil embargo, which revolutionized the world energy market. Throughout, he staked high hopes on cooperation with the US, a relationship that is still vital to both countries' interests. Exhaustively researched and including original documents and interviews in Arabic, Russian and English, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia: Personality, Faith and Times offers a unique perspective of this seminal figure and is key to understanding the Arab world today.