America's Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier (Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and Cultures) (Stanford Studies in ... and Islamic Studies and Cultures (Paperback))

America's Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier (Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and Cultures) (Stanford Studies in ... and Islamic Studies and Cultures (Paperback))

by RobertVitalis (Author)

Synopsis

America's Kingdom debunks the many myths that now surround the United States' special relationship with Saudi Arabia, also known as 'the deal': oil for security. Exploding the long-established myth that the Arabian American Oil Company, Aramco, made miracles happen in the desert, Robert Vitalis shows how oil led the U.S. government to follow the company to the kingdom, and how oil and ARAMCO quickly became America's largest single overseas private enterprise.From the establishment in the 1930s of a Jim Crow system in the Dhahran oil camps, modeled on similar labor camps set up in Latin America, the book examines the period of unrest in the 1950s and 1960s when workers challenged the racial hierarchy of ARAMCO while a small cadre of progressive Saudis challenged the hierarchy of the international oil market. The defeat of these groups led to the consolidation of America's Kingdom under the House of Fahd, the royal faction that still rules today. Informed by first-hand accounts from ARAMCO employees and top U.S. government officials, this book offers the true story of the events on the Saudi oil fields.

$31.55

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 416
Edition: Updated ed.
Publisher: Verso Books
Published: 01 Mar 2009

ISBN 10: 1844673138
ISBN 13: 9781844673131

Media Reviews
A scholarly and readable book on the interaction between Saudi society and Aramco, the US oil giant that had its beginnings when the Saudi government granted its first concessions to Standard Oil of California in 1933. Combining history with political geography, Vitalis sheds a bright light on the origins and less savory aspects of the Saudi-US relationship. London Review of Books, A devastating critique of the oil giant Aramco and how strike-breaking and racism cemented the US-Saudi relationship. Tariq Ali, Guardian
Author Bio
ROBERT VITALIS is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is author of When Capitalists Collide: Business Conflict and the End of Empire in Egypt (1995) and co-editor of Counter-Narratives: History, Contemporary Society, and Politics in Saudi Arabia and Yemen (2004).