A Land Transformed: The Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia and Saudi Aramco
2007, Saudi Aramco, 0-9601164-0-0, $25 hb
Authors: William Facey, Paul Lunde, Thomas Pledge, Michael McKinnon, Arthur P. Clark and Muhammad A. Tahlawi.
This is the seventh edition of what began in the late 1940’s as the Aramco Handbook, designed to introduce employees arriving in Saudi Arabia to the history and culture of the kingdom and the wider Arab and Muslim worlds, and to provide an overview of the oil industry. By the 1970s, it had become publicly available, and has been periodically expanded and revised since, most recently under the title Saudi Aramco and Its World. Now, fully recast in recognition of the availability of ampler material from other sources, with the addition of chapters by historians Paul Lunde and William Facey, and with all-new text, photographs and maps, this is more than ever one of the most authoritative English-language sources for study of the history of the Arabian Peninsula. It describes the growing economy of Saudi Arabia, its ongoing modernization and the history of Saudi Aramco. In addition to the Peninsula and pre-Islamic Arabia, the book also covers the revelation of Islam and its impacts, the emergence of previous Saudi states, the kingdom’s wildlife and natural history, new archeological discoveries, and the petroleum industry and Saudi Aramco’s global role. Readers familiar with previous editions will find this book entirely new, with more than 270 photographs, 25 maps, 45 other illustrations and a bibliography.
This is the seventh edition of what began in the late 1940’s as the Aramco Handbook, designed to introduce employees arriving in Saudi Arabia to the history and culture of the kingdom and the wider Arab and Muslim worlds, and to provide an overview of the oil industry. By the 1970s, it had become publicly available, and has been periodically expanded and revised since, most recently under the title Saudi Aramco and Its World. Now, fully recast in recognition of the availability of ampler material from other sources, with the addition of chapters by historians Paul Lunde and William Facey, and with all-new text, photographs and maps, this is more than ever one of the most authoritative English-language sources for study of the history of the Arabian Peninsula. It describes the growing economy of Saudi Arabia, its ongoing modernization and the history of Saudi Aramco. In addition to the Peninsula and pre-Islamic Arabia, the book also covers the revelation of Islam and its impacts, the emergence of previous Saudi states, the kingdom’s wildlife and natural history, new archeological discoveries, and the petroleum industry and Saudi Aramco’s global role. Readers familiar with previous editions will find this book entirely new, with more than 270 photographs, 25 maps, 45 other illustrations and a bibliography.
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