When Rajaa Alsanea boldly chose to open up the hidden world of Saudi women—their private lives and their conflicts with the traditions of their culture—she caused a sensation across the Arab world. 

Now in English, Alsanea’s tale of the personal struggles of four young upper-class women offers Westerners an unprecedented glimpse into a society often veiled from view. Living in restrictive Riyadh but traveling all over the globe, these modern Saudi women literally and figuratively shed traditional garb as they search for love, fulfillment, and their place somewhere in between Western society and their Islamic home.

Girls of Riyadh

Saudi Arabia is a wealthy and powerful country which exerts influence in the West and across the Islamic world. Yet it remains a closed society. The author traces its history from the age of emirates in the nineteenth century to the present day. Fusing chronology with analysis, personal experience with oral histories, she illuminates the social and cultural life of the Saudis. This rich and rewarding book will be invaluable to students as well as others trying to understand the enigma of Saudi Arabia.

A History of Saudi Arabia

A ferociously intimate memoir by a devout woman from a modest family in Saudi Arabia who became the unexpected leader of a courageous movement to support women’s right to drive.

Manal al-Sharif grew up in Mecca the second daughter of a taxi driver, born the year fundamentalism took hold. In her adolescence, she was a religious radical, melting her brother’s boy band cassettes in the oven because music was "haram": forbidden by Islamic law. But what a difference an education can make. By her twenties she was a computer security engineer, one of few women working in a desert compound that resembled suburban America. That’s when the Saudi kingdom’s contradictions became too much to bear: she was labeled a slut for chatting with male colleagues, her teenage brother chaperoned her on a business trip, and while she kept a car in her garage, she was forbidden from driving down city streets behind the wheel.

"Daring to Drive" is the fiercely intimate memoir of an accidental activist, a powerfully vivid story of a young Muslim woman who stood up to a kingdom of men—and won. Writing on the cusp of history, Manal offers a rare glimpse into the lives of women in Saudi Arabia today. Her memoir is a remarkable celebration of resilience in the face of tyranny, the extraordinary power of education and female solidarity, and the difficulties, absurdities, and joys of making your voice heard.

Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening

Inside The Kingdom: My Life In Saudi Arabia

Sultana is a Saudi Arabian princess, a woman born to fabulous, uncountable wealth. She has four mansions on three continents, her own private jet, glittering jewels, designer dresses galore. But in reality she lives in a gilded cage. She has no freedom, no control over her own life, no value but as a bearer of sons. Hidden behind her black floor-length veil, she is a prisoner, jailed by her father, her husband, her sons, and her country.Sultana is a member of the Saudi royal family, closely related to the king. For the sake of her daughters, she has decided to take the risk of speaking out about the life of women in her country, regardless of their rank. She must hide her identity for fear that the religious leaders in her country would call for her death to punish her honesty. Only a woman in her position could possibly hope to escape from being revealed and punished, despite her cloak and anonymity. Sultana tells of her own life, from her turbulent childhood to her arranged marriage--a happy one until her husband decided to displace her by taking a second wife--and of the lives of her sisters, her friends and her servants. Although they share affection, confidences and an easy camaraderie within the confines of the women's quarters, they also share a history of appalling oppression, everyday occurrences that in any other culture would be seen as shocking human rights violations; thirteen-year-old girls forced to marry men five times their age, young women killed by drowning, stoning, or isolation in the women's room, a padded, windowless cell where women are confined with neither light nor conversation until death claims them.By speaking out, Sultana risks bringing the wrath of the Saudi establishment upon her head and the heads of her children. But by telling her story to Jean Sasson, Sultana has allowed us to see beyond the veils of this secret society, to the heart of a nation where sex, money, and power reign supreme.

Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter who has spent the last thirty years writing about Saudi Arabia—as diplomatic correspondent, foreign editor, and then publisher of "The" "Wall Street Journal"—an important and timely book that explores all facets of life in this shrouded Kingdom: its tribal past, its complicated present, its precarious future.

 Through observation, anecdote, extensive interviews, and analysis Karen Elliot House navigates the maze in which Saudi citizens find themselves trapped and reveals the mysterious nation that is the world’s largest exporter of oil, critical to global stability, and a source of Islamic terrorists.

 In her probing and sharp-eyed portrait, we see Saudi Arabia, one of the last absolute monarchies in the world, considered to be the final bulwark against revolution in the region, as threatened by multiple fissures and forces, its levers of power controlled by a handful of elderly Al Saud princes with an average age of 77 years and an extended family of some 7,000 princes. Yet at least 60 percent of the increasingly restive population they rule is under the age of 20.

 The author writes that oil-rich Saudi Arabia has become a rundown welfare state. The public pays no taxes; gets free education and health care; and receives subsidized water, electricity, and energy (a gallon of gasoline is cheaper in the Kingdom than a bottle of water), with its petrodollars buying less and less loyalty. House makes clear that the royal family also uses Islam’s requirement of obedience to Allah—and by extension to earthly rulers—to perpetuate Al Saud rule.

 Behind the Saudi facade of order and obedience, today’s Saudi youth, frustrated by social conformity, are reaching out to one another and to a wider world beyond their cloistered country. Some 50 percent of Saudi youth is on the Internet; 5.1 million Saudis are on Facebook.

 To write this book, the author interviewed most of the key members of the very private royal family. She writes about King Abdullah’s modest efforts to relax some of the kingdom’s most oppressive social restrictions; women are now allowed to acquire photo ID cards, finally giving them an identity independent from their male guardians, and are newly able to register their own businesses but are still forbidden to drive and are barred from most jobs.

 With extraordinary access to Saudis—from key religious leaders and dissident imams to women at university and impoverished widows, from government officials and political dissidents to young successful Saudis and those who chose the path of terrorism—House argues that most Saudis do not want democracy but seek change nevertheless; they want a government that provides basic services without subjecting citizens to the indignity of begging princes for handouts; a government less corrupt and more transparent in how it spends hundreds of billions of annual oil revenue; a kingdom ruled by law, not royal whim.

 In House’s assessment of Saudi Arabia’s future, she compares the country today to the Soviet Union before Mikhail Gorbachev arrived with reform policies that proved too little too late after decades of stagnation under one aged and infirm Soviet leader after another. She discusses what the next generation of royal princes might bring and the choices the kingdom faces: continued economic and social stultification with growing risk of instability, or an opening of society to individual initiative and enterprise with the risk that this, too, undermines the Al Saud hold on power.

 A riveting book—informed, authoritative, illuminating—about a country that could well be on the brink, and an in-depth examination of what all this portends for Saudi Arabia’s future, and for our own.

On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines - and Future

'Clear-eyed and illuminating.' 
Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor

'A rich, superbly researched, balanced history of the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.'
General David Petraeus, former Commander U.S. Central Command and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
 
'Destined to be the best single volume on the Kingdom.' 
Ambassador Chas Freeman, former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Assistant Secretary of Defense

'Should be prescribed reading for a new generation of political leaders.'
Sir Richard Dearlove, former Chief of H.M. Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge.

Something extraordinary is happening in Saudi Arabia. A traditional, tribal society once known for its lack of tolerance is rapidly implementing significant economic and social reforms. An army of foreign consultants is rewriting the social contract, King Salman has cracked down hard on corruption, and his dynamic though inexperienced son, the Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, is promoting a more tolerant Islam. But is all this a new vision for Saudi Arabia or merely a mirage likely to dissolve into Iranian-style revolution?

David Rundell - one of America's foremost experts on Saudi Arabia - explains how the country has been stable for so long, why it is less so today, and what is most likely to happen in the future. The book is based on the author's close contacts and intimate knowledge of the country where he spent 15 years living and working as a diplomat. "Vision or Mirage" demystifies one of the most powerful, but least understood, states in the Middle East and is essential reading for anyone interested in the power dynamics and politics of the Arab World.

Vision or Mirage: Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads

The bestselling author of "The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power" tells the gripping story of the real roots of the Middle East Sunni-Shia conflict in the 1979 Iran Revolution that changed the region forever.

"Black Wave" is a paradigm-shifting recasting of the modern history of the Middle East, telling the largely unexplored story of the rivalry between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran--a rivalry born out of the sparks of the 1979 Iranian revolution--that has dramatically transformed the culture, identity, and collective memory of millions of Muslims over four decades. Like George Packer did in "The Unwinding", Kim Ghattas follows everyday citizens whose lives have been affected by the geopolitical drama, making her account both immediate and intimate.

Most Americans assume that extremism, Sunni-Shia antagonism, and anti-Americanism have always existed in the Middle East, but prior to 1979, Saudi Arabia and Iran were working allies. It was only after that year--a remarkable turning point--that Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia began to use religion as a tool in their competition for dominance in the region, igniting the culture wars that led to the 1991 American invasion of Iraq, the September 11th terrorist attacks, and the rise of ISIS.

Ghattas shows how Saudi Arabia and Iran went from allies against the threat of communism from Russia, with major roles in the US anti-Soviet strategy, to mortal enemies that use religious conservatism to incite division and unrest from Egypt to Pakistan. "Black Wave" will significantly influence both perception of and conversation about the modern history of the Middle East.

Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East

The rise and rise of the Bin Laden family is one of the great stories of the twentieth century; its repercussions have already deeply marked the twenty-first. Until now, however, it is a story that has never been fully told, as the Bin Ladens have successfully fended off attempts to understand the family circles from which Osama sprang. In this the family has been abetted by the kingdom it calls home, Saudi Arabia, one of the most closed societies on earth.Steve Coll’s "The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century" is the groundbreaking history of a family and its fortune. It chronicles a young illiterate Yemeni bricklayer, Mohamed Bin Laden, who went to the new, oil-rich country of Saudi Arabia and quickly became a vital figure in its development, building great mosques and highways and making himself and many of his children millionaires. It is also a story of the Saudi royal family, whom the Bin Ladens served loyally and without whose capricious favor they would have been nothing. And it is a story of tensions and contradictions in a country founded on extreme religious purity, which then became awash in oil money and dazzled by the temptations of the West. In only two generations the Bin Ladens moved from a famine-stricken desert canyon to luxury jets, yachts, and private compounds around the world, even going into business with Hollywood celebrities. These religious and cultural gyrations resulted in everything from enthusiasm for America—exemplified by Osama’s free-living pilot brother Salem—to an overwhelming determination to destroy it.

"The Bin Ladens" is a meticulously researched, colorful, shocking, entertaining, and disturbing narrative of global integration and its limitations. It encapsulates the unsettling contradictions of globalization in the story of a single family who has used money, mobility, and technology to dramatically varied ends.

The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century

"Arabian Sands" is Wilfred Thesiger's record of his extraordinary journey through the parched "Empty Quarter" of Arabia. Educated at Eton and Oxford, Thesiger was repulsed by the softness and rigidity of Western life-"the machines, the calling cards, the meticulously aligned streets." In the spirit of T. E. Lawrence, he set out to explore the deserts of Arabia, traveling among peoples who had never seen a European and considered it their duty to kill Christian infidels. His now-classic account is invaluable to understanding the modern Middle East.

Arabian Sands

**Named a Best Book of 2020 by "Fortune, Wired," and "Kirkus Reviews"**

From award-winning "Wall Street Journal "reporters Justin Scheck &amp; Bradley Hope (coauthor of "Billion Dollar Whale"), this revelatory look at the world's most powerful ruling family reveals how a rift within Saudi Arabian royalty produced Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a charismatic leader with a ruthless streak. *Longlisted for the "Financial Times" &amp; McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award* 35-year-old Mohammed bin Salman's sudden rise stunned the world. Political and business leaders such as former UK prime minister Tony Blair and WME chairman Ari Emanuel flew out to meet with the crown prince and came away convinced that his desire to reform the kingdom was sincere. He spoke passionately about bringing women into the workforce and toning down Saudi Arabia's restrictive Islamic law. He lifted the ban on women driving and explored investments in Silicon Valley.
But MBS began to betray an erratic interior beneath the polish laid on by scores of consultants and public relations experts like McKinsey &amp; Company. The allegations of his extreme brutality and excess began to slip out, including that he ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. While stamping out dissent by holding 300 people, including prominent members of the Saudi royal family, in the Ritz-Carlton hotel and elsewhere for months, he continued to exhibit his extreme wealth, including buying a $70 million chateau in Europe and one of the world's most expensive yachts. It seemed that he did not understand nor care about how the outside world would react to his displays of autocratic muscle-what mattered was the flex.

"Blood and Oil" is a gripping work of investigative journalism about one of the world's most decisive and dangerous new leaders. Hope and Scheck show how MBS' precipitous rise coincided with the fraying of the simple bargain that had been at the head of US-Saudi relations for more than 80 years: oil, for military protection. Caught in his net are well-known US bankers, Hollywood figures, and politicians, all eager to help the charming and crafty crown prince.

The Middle East is already a volatile region. Add to the mix an ambitious prince with extraordinary powers, hunger for lucre, a tight relationship with the White House through President Trump's son in law Jared Kushner, and an apparent willingness to break anything-and anyone-that gets in the way of his vision, and the stakes of his rise are bracing. If his bid fails, Saudi Arabia has the potential to become an unstable failed state and a magnet for Islamic extremists. And if his bid to transform his country succeeds, even in part, it will have reverberations around the world.

Blood and Oil: Mohammed bin Salman's Ruthless Quest for Global Power

Frances Shore is a cartographer by trade, a maker of maps, but when her husband's work takes her to Saudi Arabia she finds herself unable to map the Kingdom's areas of internal darkness. The regime is corrupt and harsh, the expatriates are hard-drinking money-grubbers, and her Muslim neighbours are secretive, watchful. The streets are not a woman's territory; confined in her flat, she finds her sense of self begin to dissolve. She hears whispers, sounds of distress from the 'empty' flat above her head. She has only rumours, no facts to hang on to, and no one with whom to share her creeping unease. As her days empty of certainty and purpose, her life becomes a blank -- waiting to be filled by violence and disaster.

Eight Months on Ghazzah Street

In "The Siege of Mecca," acclaimed journalist Yaroslav Trofimov pulls back the curtain on a thrilling, pivotal, and overlooked episode of modern history, examining its repercussions on the Middle East and the world.On November 20, 1979, worldwide attention was focused on Tehran, where the Iranian hostage crisis was entering its third week. That same morning, gunmen stunned the world by seizing the Grand Mosque in Mecca, creating a siege that trapped 100,000 people and lasted two weeks, inflaming Muslim rage against the United States and causing hundreds of deaths. But in the days before CNN and Al Jazeera, the press barely took notice. Trofimov interviews for the first time scores of direct participants in the siege, and draws upon hundreds of newly declassified documents. With the pacing, detail, and suspense of a real-life thriller, "The Siege of Mecca" reveals the long-lasting aftereffects of the uprising and its influence on the world today. "From the Trade Paperback edition."

The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine and the Birth of al-Qaeda

The Oil Kings: How the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East

The Gonzo memoir from one of the most influential voices in American literature, "Kingdom of Fear" traces the course of Hunter S. Thompson’s life as a rebel—from a smart-mouthed Kentucky kid flaunting all authority to a convention-defying journalist who came to personify a wild fusion of fact, fiction, and mind-altering substances.

Brilliant, provocative, outrageous, and brazen, Hunter S. Thompson's infamous rule breaking—in his journalism, in his life, and under the law—changed the shape of American letters, and the face of American icons.

 Call it the evolution of an outlaw. Here are the formative experiences that comprise Thompson’s legendary trajectory alongside the weird and the ugly. Whether detailing his exploits as a foreign correspondent in Rio, his job as night manager of the notorious O’Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, his epic run for sheriff of Aspen on the Freak Power ticket, or the sensational legal maneuvering that led to his full acquittal in the famous 99 Days trial, Thompson is at the peak of his narrative powers in Kingdom of Fear. And this boisterous, blistering ride illuminates as never before the professional and ideological risk taking of a literary genius and transgressive icon.

Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

For the first time, the international bestselling PRINCESS books are available in a boxed set.


IT ALL BEGAN WITH PRINCESS, called "Absolutely riveting..." by People Magazine.


This first book in the nonfiction trilogy describes the true life of Princess Sultana, a princess in the royal house of Saudi Arabia where she lives in a "gilded cage" with no freedom and no control over her own life.


The saga continues with PRINCESS SULTANA'S DAUGHTERS called "Another page turner..." by Publishers Weekly. DAUGHTERS continues the extraordinary story of Princess Sultana. Gripping and personal, DAUGHTERS recounts the lonely battle of a Princess who is attempting to secure freedoms for her daughters.


The third and last book completes the PRINCESS TRILOGY, called a "Political rallying cry...." by Publisher's Weekly. CIRCLE paints a horrifying reality for women of the desert kingdom. As Sultana battles for a life of dignity, she saves other women from servitude.


THE PRINCESS TRILOGY is the testimony of a woman of indomitable spirit and great courage.


You have never read a story like the story of Sultana, and you will never forget her or her Muslim sisters.


Jean's first book THE RAPE OF KUWAIT, based on her eye witness reporting on the invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi troops, was an immediate bestseller. Shortly thereafter she became a full-time writer. Her next three books, PRINCESS, PRINCESS SULTANA'S DAUGHTERS, and PRINCESS SULTANA'S CIRCLE, became international sensations as they were the first books to bring to the western world the shocking stories about life for women in Saudi Arabia. Jean is also the author of MAYADA, DAUGHTER OF IRAQ, about the prison experiences of an Iraqi journalist praised by Saddam Hussein; LOVE IN A TORN LAND: The True Story of a Freedom Fighter's Escape from Iraqi Vengeance which tells the story of a beautiful Kurdish woman; GROWING UP BIN LADEN: Osama's Wife and Son Take Us into Their Secret World; and FOR THE LOVE OF A SON: One Afghan Woman's Quest for Her Stolen Child. Her work has been featured in People, Vanity Fair,The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The New York Post, The Sunday London Times, The Guardian, CNN, FOX, NBC, and many other news organizations.


Still traveling the world, Jean has made her homebase in Atlanta, Georgia where she is a passionate animal rights and women's rights supporter.


PRAISE FOR JEAN SASSON'S BOOKS:


“Fascinating...an intimate account of a family life that became steadily more dangerous and bizarre...in forced pursuit of Osama’s jihadist dreams.” --Washington Post


"The startling truth behind veiled lives...frank and vivid" --Sunday Express


"Anyone with the slightest interest in human rights will find this book heart-wrenching." --Betty Mahmoody, bestselling author of NOT WITHOUT MY DAUGHTER


"A fascinating narrative...devasting" --Robert Harris, Sunday Times


"Absolutely riveting and profoundly sad..." --People


"A chilling story...a vivid account of an air-conditioned nightmare..." --Entertainment Weekly


"Must-reading for anyone interested in human rights." --USA Today


"Shocking...candid...sad, sobering, and compassionate..." --San Francisco Chronicle

The Complete Princess Trilogy: Princess; Princess Sultana's Daughters; and Princess Sultana's Circle

"In this stunningly written book, a Western trained Muslim doctor brings alive what it means for a woman to live in the Saudi Kingdom. I've rarely experienced so vividly the shunning and shaming, racism and anti-Semitism, but the surprise is how Dr. Ahmed also finds tenderness at the tattered edges of extremism, and a life-changing pilgrimage back to her Muslim faith." - Gail Sheehy 
The decisions that change your life are often the most impulsive ones. 
Unexpectedly denied a visa to remain in the United States, Qanta Ahmed, a young British Muslim doctor, becomes an outcast in motion. On a whim, she accepts an exciting position in Saudi Arabia. This is not just a new job; this is a chance at adventure in an exotic land she thinks she understands, a place she hopes she will belong. 
What she discovers is vastly different. The Kingdom is a world apart, a land of unparralled contrast. She finds rejection and scorn in the places she believed would most embrace her, but also humor, honesty, loyalty and love. 
And for Qanta, more than anything, it is a land of opportunity. A place where she discovers what it takes for one woman to recreate herself in the land of invisible women.

In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi Kingdom

Newsbreaking and controversial -- an award-winning investigative journalist uncovers the thirty-year relationship between the Bush family and the House of Saud and explains its impact on American foreign policy, business, and national security. 
 "House of Bush, House of Saud" begins with a politically explosive question: How is it that two days after 9/11, when U.S. air traffic was tightly restricted, 140 Saudis, many immediate kin to Osama Bin Laden, were permitted to leave the country without being questioned by U.S. intelligence? 
 The answer lies in a hidden relationship that began in the 1970s, when the oil-rich House of Saud began courting American politicians in a bid for military protection, influence, and investment opportunity. With the Bush family, the Saudis hit a gusher -- direct access to presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. To trace the amazing weave of Saud- Bush connections, Unger interviewed three former directors of the CIA, top Saudi and Israeli intelligence officials, and more than one hundred other sources. His access to major players is unparalleled and often exclusive -- including executives at the Carlyle Group, the giant investment firm where the House of Bush and the House of Saud each has a major stake. 
 Like Bob Woodward's "The Veil," Unger's "House of Bush, House of Saud" features unprecedented reportage; like Michael Moore's "Dude, Where's My Country?" Unger's book offers a political counter-narrative to official explanations; this deeply sourced account has already been cited by Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer, and sets 9/11, the two Gulf Wars, and the ongoing Middle East crisis in a new context: What really happened when America's most powerful political family became seduced by its Saudi counterparts?

House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties

In 1967, Bashir Al-Khayri, a Palestinian twenty-five-year-old, journeyed to Israel, with the goal of seeing the beloved old stone house, with the lemon tree behind it, that he and his family had fled nineteen years earlier. To his surprise, when he found the house he was greeted by Dalia Ashkenazi Landau, a nineteen-year-old Israeli college student, whose family fled Europe for Israel following the Holocaust. On the stoop of their shared home, Dalia and Bashir began a rare friendship, forged in the aftermath of war and tested over the next thirty-five years in ways that neither could imagine on that summer day in 1967. Based on extensive research, and springing from his enormously resonant documentary that aired on NPR’s "Fresh Air" in 1998, Sandy Tolan brings the Israeli-Palestinian conflict down to its most human level, suggesting that even amid the bleakest political realities there exist stories of hope and reconciliation.

The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East

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.

MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman

This comprehensive work provides a penetrating analysis of modern Middle Eastern history, from the Ottoman and Egyptian reforms, through the challenge of Western imperialism, to the Iranian Revolution and the Gulf War. After introducing the reader to the region's history from the origins of Islam in the seventh century, Cleveland focuses on the past two centuries of profound and often dramatic change. While built around a framework of political history, the book also carefully integrates social, cultural, and economic developments into a single, carefully crafted account. The revised and updated third edition of this benchmark text places the developments of the 1990s in a new historical perspective and includes an examination of key events of the early twenty-first century. An epilogue offers a critical evaluation, from a historian's perspective, of the al-Qa'ida attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the early phases of the US occupation of Iraq.

A History of the Modern Middle East

In spring 2011, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned to his friend and army commander, Manaf Tlass, for advice about how to respond to Arab Spring-inspired protests. Tlass pushed for conciliation but Assad decided to crush the uprising -- an act which would catapult the country into an eight-year long war, killing almost half a million and fueling terrorism and a global refugee crisis.

"Assad or We Burn the Country" examines Syria's tragedy through the generational saga of the Assad and Tlass families, once deeply intertwined and now estranged in Bashar's bloody quest to preserve his father's inheritance. By drawing on his own reporting experience in Damascus and exclusive interviews with Tlass, Dagher takes readers within palace walls to reveal the family behind the destruction of a country and the chaos of an entire region.

Dagher shows how one of the world's most vicious police states came to be and explains how a regional conflict extended globally, engulfing the Middle East and pitting the United States and Russia against one another.

Assad or We Burn the Country: How One Family's Lust for Power Destroyed Syria

A Californian paramedic answers an advertisement for contract work at a military hospital in Saudi Arabia. So his adventure begins. This is a riveting, factual account of his ten years inside a country seldom seen by the outside world. Working on the private medical staff of King Abdullah, no western writer has ever been this close to the "House of Saud." The author takes you on a journey from the desert camps of the Bedouin to the highest echelons of the Saudi royal family. From meetings between King Abdullah and Yasser Arafat to the death of Edi Amin the author documents it all. Themes explored include the contrast of cultures and the rise of terrorism in a post 9/11 world. The author's unique and often humorous perspective provides a view of Saudi society that has never before been documented by any other book in this genre. The author gives an important insight to events that continue to affect the world today.

Paramedic to the Prince: A Paramedic's Account of Life Inside the Mysterious World of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Ketika bisnis orang tuanya jatuh dan keluarganya mengalami kebangkrutan secara tiba-tiba, Lana terpaksa melihat dengan mata kepalanya sendiri bagaimana orang-orang yang dicintainya satu persatu meninggalkannya. Ibunya terpuruk dalam rasa malu dan kecewa lalu meninggal karena digerogoti penyakit yang sumber utamanya adalah dari hatinya yang hancur karena tidak kuat menjalani kehidupan baru setelah kejatuhan keluarganya, Ayahnya yang menjadi pemabuk setelah kematian ibunya, ahkirnya meninggal dalam sebuah kecelakaan yang diindikasikan bunuh diri dengan sengaja. Mereka berdua meninggalkan Lana Sendirian, sebatang kara di dunia ini.

Sendirian di dunia ini, Lana menyadari bahwa penghancur hidup keluarganya, yang menjadi pembunuh tak langsung kedua orang tuanya adalah Mikail Raveno, Pria berdarah italia, penguasa bisnis yang punya hobby menghancurkan dan menguasai perusahaan-perusahaan kecil yang dia incar, termasuk perusahaan orang tua Lana. Kehidupan keluarga mereka sebenarnya baik-baik saja sebelum Mikail Raveno masuk dan merusak semuanya. Entah apa yang dilakukan oleh lelaki itu kepada perusahaan ayahnya, yang Lana yakini, lelaki itulah yang menjadi penyebab utama dia kehilangan kedua orangtuanya. 

Mikail Raveno adalah pengusaha dengan kejeniusan di bidang bisnis dan berdarah dingin, dia ditakuti karena tidak punya belas kasihan.Tidak ada yang menyukai wataknya yang pemarah dan kejam, tetapi tidak ada yang berani menentangnya, karena lelaki itu selalu menghancurkan siapapun yang menghalanginya tanpa ampun.

Dengan nekat dan didorong oleh keinginan membalaskan dendam bagi keluarganya, Lana mencoba mendekati Mikail dan mencari cara untuk membalaskan dendamnya kepada lelaki kejam itu. Lana ingin mencari kepuasan dengan melukai Mikail, meskipun hanya sedikit. Tetapi sayangnya, penjagaan keamanan di sekeliling Mikail tidak tertembus. Lana malahan berahkir dalam cengkeraman Mikail, dirinya di culik paksa, dilecehkan di luar kehendaknya dan dipenjara di rumah Mikail.

Kenapa Mikail menyekapnya? Apakah Mikail mengetahui niat Lana untuk membalaskan dendam kematian kedua orangtuanya sehingga memutuskan untuk menahannya? Dan kenapa semakin lama, Mikail semakin tidak ingin melepaskan Lana? Apa sebenarnya rahasia yang disimpan oleh Mikail Raveno yang misterius itu? 

Novel ini begitu panas, oleh gejolak dan percikan gairah dua manusia yang saling bermusuhan, yang sama-sama bertemperamen keras, Lana seorang perempuan mandiri yang meledak-ledak harus berhadapan dengan Mikail, lelaki arogan yang terbiasa mendapatkan apa yang dia mau.

Sleep with the Devil

Why do young Saudis, night after night, joyride and skid cars on Riyadh's avenues? Who are these "drifters" who defy public order and private property? What drives their revolt? Based on four years of fieldwork in Riyadh, Pascal Menoret's Joyriding in Riyadh explores the social fabric of the city and connects it to Saudi Arabia's recent history. Car drifting emerged after Riyadh was planned, and oil became the main driver of the economy. For young rural migrants, it was a way to reclaim alienating and threatening urban spaces. For the Saudi state, it jeopardized its most basic operations: managing public spaces and enforcing law and order. A police crackdown soon targeted car drifting, feeding a nationwide moral panic led by religious activists who framed youth culture as a public issue. The book retraces the politicization of Riyadh youth and shows that, far from being a marginal event, car drifting is embedded in the country's social violence and economic inequality.

Joyriding in Riyadh: Oil, Urbanism, and Road Revolt

Women in Saudi Arabia are often described as either victims of patriarchal religion and society or successful survivors of discrimination imposed on them by others. Madawi Al-Rasheed's new book goes beyond these conventional tropes to probe the historical, political, and religious forces that have, across the years, delayed and thwarted their emancipation. The book demonstrates how, under the patronage of the state and its religious nationalism, women have become hostage to contradictory political projects that on the one hand demand female piety, and on the other hand encourage modernity. Drawing on state documents, media sources, and interviews with women from across Saudi society, the book examines the intersection between gender, religion, and politics to explain these contradictions and to show that, despite these restraints, vibrant debates on the question of women are opening up as the struggle for recognition and equality finally gets under way.

A Most Masculine State: Gender, Politics and Religion in Saudi Arabia

This book paints a horrifying reality for women of the desert kingdom. It is a haunting look at the danger of Saudi male dominance and the desperate lives of the women they rule.

Las Cadenas de Sultana

Set in an unnamed Persian Gulf kingdom in the 1930s, this remarkable novel tells the story of the disruption and diaspora of a poor oasis community following the discovery of oil there. The meeting of the Arabs and the Americans who, in essence, colonize the remote region is a cultural confrontation in which religion, history, superstition, and mutual incomprehension all play a part.

Powerful political fiction that it is, "CITIES OF SALT" has been banned in several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia. This novel, the first volume in a trilogy, has been translated from the Arabic to the English by Peter Theroux.

Cities of Salt (مدن الملح #1)

Readers of PRINCESS were gripped by Jean Sasson's powerful indictment of women's lives behind the veil. Now, in the compelling sequel, Jean Sasson and Princess Sultana turn the spotlight on Sultana's two teenage daughters, Maha and Amani. 

As second-generation members of the royal family who have benefited from Saudi oil wealth, Maha and Amani are surrounded by untold opulence and luxury from the day they were born. And yet, they are stifled by the unbearably restrictive lifestyle imposed on them, driving them to desperate measures. 

Throughout, Sultana and Sasson never tire of their quest to expose the injustices which society levels against women. Princess Sultana once more strikes a chord among all women who are lucky enough to have the freedom to speak out for themselves.

Princess Sultana's Daughters

Saudi Arabia: land of oil, terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, and a crucial American ally. John R. Bradley uniquely exposes the turmoil that is shaking the House of Saud to its foundations, including the problems within the new leadership. From the heart of the secretive Islamic kingdom's urban centers to its most remote mountainous terrain, he provides intimate details and reveals regional, religious, and tribal rivalries. 
Bradley highlights tensions generated by social change, the increasing restlessness of Saudi youth with limited cultural and political outlets, and the predicament of Saudi women seeking opportunities but facing constraints. 
What are the implications for the Sauds and the West? This book offers a startling look at the present predicament and a troubling view of the future.

Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis

Behind the Kingdom's Veil: Inside the New Saudi Arabia Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

Najeeb’s dearest wish is to work in the Gulf and earn enough money to send back home. He achieves his dream only to be propelled by a series of incidents, grim and absurd, into a slave-like existence herding goats in the middle of the Saudi desert. Memories of the lush, verdant landscape of his village and of his loving family haunt Najeeb whose only solace is the companionship of goats. In the end, the lonely young man contrives a hazardous scheme to escape his desert prison.

Goat Days was published to acclaim in Malayalam and became a bestseller. One of the brilliant new talents of Malayalam literature, Benyamin’s wry and tender telling transforms this strange and bitter comedy of Najeeb’s life in the desert into a universal tale of loneliness and alienation.

Goat Days

Based on a wealth of Arab, Western, and Eastern European sources and spanning the entire history of Saudi Arabia, Alexei Vassiliev's account will stand as the definitive account of the Arabian peninsula's dominant state.

The History of Saudi Arabia

"Essentials of Mediterranean Cooking" begins with an overview of the rich history of the region and the many elements that have come together to create one of the world's first--and best--fusion cuisines. The featured countries are showcased with a discussion of their iconic foods and a list of their specialties, from the bouillabaisse of Provence to the tagines of North Africa. A section on the Mediterranean diet explains the benefits of this traditional way of eating, with its emphasis on vegetables, grains, and seafood. Five chapters, with some 130 recipes drawn from the more than one dozen countries that ring the Mediterranean, are organized by courses. The exquisitely photographed dishes range from simple, earthy Spanish gazpacho to such showstopping main courses as Moroccan chicken bisteeya. The final chapter holds a wealth of seductive finales, including a pistachio-laced gelato from Italy and a lemon-and-lavender-scented granite from France.

Detailed instructions and step-by-step photographs explain such basic techniques as working with filo dough and making romesco sauce. An informative glossary with culinary terms and ingredients completes this indispensable introduction to the cuisines of the Mediterranean.

Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Mediterranean Cooking: Authentic recipes from Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, The Middle East, North Africa

Of all the countries in the world that are vital to the strategic and economic interests of the United States, Saudi Arabia is the least understood by the American people. Saudi Arabia’s unique place in Islam makes it indispensable to a constructive relationship between the non-Muslim West and the Muslim world. For all its wealth, the country faces daunting challenges that it lacks the tools to meet: a restless and young population, a new generation of educated women demanding opportunities in a closed society, political stagnation under an octogenarian leadership, religious extremism and intellectual backwardness, social division, chronic unemployment, shortages of food and water, and troublesome neighbors.

Today’s Saudi people, far better informed than all previous generations, are looking for new political institutions that will enable them to be heard, but these aspirations conflict with the kingdom’s strict traditions and with the House of Saud’s determination to retain all true power. Meanwhile, the country wishes to remain under the protection of American security but still clings to a system that is antithetical to American values.

Basing his work on extensive interviews and field research conducted in the kingdom from 2008 through 2011 under the auspices of the Council on Foreign Relations, Thomas W. Lippman dissects this central Saudi paradox for American readers, including diplomats, policymakers, scholars, and students of foreign policy.


Saudi Arabia on the Edge: The Uncertain Future of an American Ally

The terms Wahhabi or Salafi are seen as interchangeable and frequently misunderstood by outsiders. However, as Madawi al-Rasheed explains in a fascinating exploration of Saudi Arabia in the twenty-first century, even Saudis do not agree on their meaning. Under the influence of mass education, printing, new communication technology, and global media, they are forming their own conclusions and debating religion and politics in traditional and novel venues, often violating official taboos and the conservative values of the Saudi society. Drawing on classical religious sources, contemporary readings and interviews, Al-Rasheed presents an ethnography of consent and contest, exploring the fluidity of the boundaries between the religious and political. Bridging the gap between text and context, the author also examines how states and citizens manipulate religious discourse for purely political ends, and how this manipulation generates unpredictable reactions whose control escapes those who initiated them.

Contesting the Saudi State: Islamic Voices from a New Generation


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.


The Son King: Reform and Repression in Saudi Arabia

Will Saudi Arabia join the democratic wave in the Middle East? The uprisings and revolutions of 2011 do not, yet, seem to have affected the stability of the House of Saud, which remains secretive, highly repressive and propped up by the West. 

"The Islamic Utopia" uses a range of sources including first-hand reporting and recently released WikiLeaks documents to examine Saudi Arabia in the decade after the 9/11 attacks, when King Abdullah’s 'reform' agenda took centre stage in public debate. It considers Saudi claims of 'exemption' from the democratic demands of the Arab Spring. 

Andrew Hammond argues that for too long Western media and governments have accepted Saudi leaders' claims to be a buttress against jihadist Islam and that a new policy is needed towards the House of Saud.

The Islamic Utopia: The Illusion of Reform in Saudi Arabia

Analysis of both official and opposition Saudi divine politics is often monolithic, conjuring images of conservatism, radicalism, misogyny and resistance to democracy. Madawi Al-Rasheed challenges this stereotype as she examines a long tradition of engaging with modernism that gathered momentum with the Arab uprisings and incurred the wrath of both the regime and its Wahhabi supporters. With this nascent modernism, constructions of new divine politics, anchored in a rigorous reinterpretation of foundational Islamic texts and civil society activism are emerging in a context where authoritarian rule prefers its advocates to remain muted. The author challenges scholarly wisdom on Islamism in general and blurs the boundaries between secular and religious politics.


Muted Modernists: The Struggle Over Divine Politics in Saudi Arabia

Mi Peregrinacion a Medina y La Meca II

Toby Matthiesen traces the politics of the Shia in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia from the nineteenth century until the present day. This book outlines the difficult experiences of being Shia in a Wahhabi state, and casts new light on how the Shia have mobilised politically to change their position. Shia petitioned the rulers, joined secular opposition parties and founded Islamist movements. Most Saudi Shia opposition activists profited from an amnesty in 1993 and subsequently found a place in civil society and the public sphere. However, since 2011 a new Shia protest movement has again challenged the state. The Other Saudis shows how exclusionary state practices created an internal Other and how sectarian discrimination has strengthened Shia communal identities. The book is based on little-known Arabic sources, extensive fieldwork in Saudi Arabia and interviews with key activists. Of immense geopolitical importance, the oil-rich Eastern Province is a crucial but little known factor in regional politics and Gulf security.

The Other Saudis: Shiism, Dissent and Sectarianism

Although the position of Saudi women within society draws media attention throughout the world, young Saudi men remain part of a silent mass, their thoughts and views rarely heard outside of the Kingdom. Based on primary research across Saudi Arabia with young men from a diverse range of backgrounds, Mark C. Thompson allows for this distinct group of voices to be heard, revealing their opinions and attitudes towards the societal and economic transformations affecting their lives within a gender-segregated society and examining the challenges and dilemmas facing young Saudi men in the twenty-first century. From ideas and beliefs about, identity, education, employment, marriage prospects and gender segregation, as well as political participation and exclusion, this study in turn invites us to reconsider the future of Saudi Arabia as a globalized kingdom.

Being Young, Male and Saudi: Identity and Politics in a Globalized Kingdom

The production of history is premised on the selective erasure of certain pasts and the artifacts that stand witness to them. From the elision of archival documents to the demolition of sacred and secular spaces, each act of destruction is also an act of state building. Following the 1991 Gulf War, political elites in Saudi Arabia pursued these dual projects of historical commemoration and state formation with greater fervor to enforce their postwar vision for state, nation, and economy. Seeing Islamist movements as the leading threat to state power, they sought to de-center religion from educational, cultural, and spatial policies.

With this book, Rosie Bsheer explores the increasing secularization of the postwar Saudi state and how it manifested in assembling a national archive and reordering urban space in Riyadh and Mecca. The elites' project was rife with ironies: in Riyadh, they employed world-renowned experts to fashion an imagined history, while at the same time in Mecca they were overseeing the obliteration of a thousand-year-old topography and its replacement with commercial megaprojects. "Archive Wars" shows how the Saudi state's response to the challenges of the Gulf War served to historicize a national space, territorialize a national history, and ultimately refract both through new modes of capital accumulation.

Archive Wars: The Politics of History in Saudi Arabia

Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the majestic city of Sky. There, to her shock, Yeine is named an heiress to the king. But the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is not easily won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Inheritance, #1)

Tariq Ramadan is one of the most acclaimed figures in the analysis of Islam and its political dimensions today. In "The Arab Awakening" he explores the opportunities and challenges across North Africa and the Middle East, as they look to create new, more open societies. He asks: Can Muslim countries bring together Islam, pluralism and democracy without betraying their identity? Will the Arab world be able to reclaim its memory to reinvent education, women's rights, social justice, economic growth and the fight against corruption? Can this emancipation be envisioned with Islam, experienced not as a straitjacket, but as an ethical and cultural wealth? Arguing that the debate cannot be reduced to a confrontation between two approaches - the modern and secular versus the traditional and Islamic - Ramadan demonstrates that not only are both of these routes in crisis, but that the Arab world has an historic opportunity: to stop blaming the West, to jettison its victim status and to create a truly new dynamic. Tariq Ramadan offers up a challenge to the Middle East: What enduring legacy will you produce, from the historic moment of the Arab Spring?

Saudi Arabia

Girls of Riyadh

Rajaa Alsanea

A History of Saudi Arabia

مضاوي الرشيد

Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening

Manal Al-Sharif

Inside The Kingdom: My Life In Saudi Arabia

Carmen Bin Ladin

Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia

Jean Sasson

On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines - and Future

Karen Elliott House

Inside The Kingdom: My Life In Saudi Arabia

Carmen Bin Ladin

Vision or Mirage: Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads

David Rundell

Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East

Kim Ghattas

The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century

Steve Coll

Arabian Sands

Wilfred Thesiger

Blood and Oil: Mohammed bin Salman's Ruthless Quest for Global Power

Bradley Hope

Eight Months on Ghazzah Street

Hilary Mantel

The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine and the Birth of al-Qaeda

Yaroslav Trofimov

The Oil Kings: How the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East

Andrew Scott Cooper

Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

Hunter S. Thompson

The Complete Princess Trilogy: Princess; Princess Sultana's Daughters; and Princess Sultana's Circle

Jean Sasson

In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi Kingdom

Qanta A. Ahmed

House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties

Craig Unger

The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East

Sandy Tolan

MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman

Ben Hubbard

A History of the Modern Middle East

William L. Cleveland

Assad or We Burn the Country: How One Family's Lust for Power Destroyed Syria

Sam Dagher

Paramedic to the Prince: A Paramedic's Account of Life Inside the Mysterious World of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Patrick (Tom) Notestine

Sleep with the Devil

Santhy Agatha

Joyriding in Riyadh: Oil, Urbanism, and Road Revolt

Pascal Menoret

A Most Masculine State: Gender, Politics and Religion in Saudi Arabia

مضاوي الرشيد

Las Cadenas de Sultana

Jean Sasson

Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia

Jean Sasson

Cities of Salt (مدن الملح #1)

Abdul Rahman Munif

Princess Sultana's Daughters

Jean Sasson

Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis

John R. Bradley

Behind the Kingdom's Veil: Inside the New Saudi Arabia Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

Susanne Koelbl

Goat Days

Benyamin

The History of Saudi Arabia

Alexei Vassiliev

Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Mediterranean Cooking: Authentic recipes from Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, The Middle East, North Africa

Charity Ferreira

Saudi Arabia on the Edge: The Uncertain Future of an American Ally

Thomas W. Lippman

Contesting the Saudi State: Islamic Voices from a New Generation

مضاوي الرشيد

The Son King: Reform and Repression in Saudi Arabia

Madawi Al-Rasheed

The Islamic Utopia: The Illusion of Reform in Saudi Arabia