The fifth in the CAIW series, this title reflects 50 years of experience in Cambridge (UK)-based World of Information, which since 1975 has followed the region’s politics and economics. In the period following the Second World War, Saudi Arabia – a curious fusion of medieval theocracy, unruly dictatorship, and extrovert wealth - has been called a country of ‘superlatives.’
The modernization of the Kingdom’s oil industry has been a smooth process: its oilfields are highly sophisticated. However, social modernization has not kept pace. ‘Reform’, long a preoccupation among the Peninsula’s leaders does not necessarily go hand in hand with religion.