Saudi, Inc.: The Arabian Kingdom’s Pursuit of Profit and Power

Wald, an energy consultant, takes aim at the image of Saudi Arabia as a hidebound, oil-reliant monarchy, and here presents the kingdom as a canny and agile power player throughout the 20th century. Wald writes too little about royal-family corruption, a subject brought to the fore in 2017 by sweeping internal purges throughout Saudi Arabia, but she is superb on intraroyal machinations, such as the early 1960s power struggle that resulted in King Saud’s ouster by his brother Prince Faisal, and on U.S.-Saudi relations, including how King Fahd overcame clerical objections to the housing of American troops in his country during the first Iraq War. Concerning Aramco, the national oil company, Wald shows how Saudis “hired Westerners, learned from them, and eventually positioned [their country] to take over operations and build on its own.” She also reveals it was Aramco’s expansion into Asia and diversification, including into solar energy, that allowed it and the kingdom to survive the 2016 plunge in oil prices. Despite some occasional stylistic awkwardness—e.g., “It is not unreasonable to say that women in Saudi Arabia have not been treated equally to men”—Wald has produced a clear, concise history of both the kingdom and its all-important oil corporation. (Apr.)