For those interested in how this country came into being, this is a great book. I never thought that the history of this country is relatively new. The House of Saud ruled the region of the Nejed. They dispossesed the House of Rasheed through the use of a fundamentalist Islamic religion called Wahhabism. Then they conquered the Hejez, ruled by the Hashemites. The leader of the Nejed was Ibn Saud. He lived a long and fruitful life, having over 50 sons (no mention of daughters though). When he died in 1953, his sons took over and haved ruled since. The current sovereign Abdullah is one of his oldest.
For those interested in the current situation in the Middle East, this explains much. The export of this fundamentalist strain of Islam called Wahhabism is now plaguing the world with terror. Since the House of Saud has cultivated this strain, they have much to be responsible for in the current terror situation (including 9/11). The original author of the first ten chapters was murdered in Egypt and one wonders if it was as a result of writing this book. This is a very informative as well as long book. It describes much of the internal politics of Saudi Arabia. Since this was published in the early 1980s, it is a little dated.