Ian Black was the Guardian's Middle East editor, European editor, diplomatic editor and foreign leader writer in 36 years on the paper. He is now a visiting senior fellow at the Middle East Centre, LSE. His latest book is Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017.At the Guardian, Black tagged five books to understand Saudi Arabia, including:
For the background to the heavily spun narrative of modernisation under the thirtysomething MBS [Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman], a highly readable account is provided by Robert Lacey’s Inside the Kingdom (2009).Read about the other entries on the list.Lacey wrote an earlier book describing the transformation of a pastoral and nomadic society – when traditional Bedouin raids were what Sir John Glubb called “a cross between Arthurian chivalry and county cricket” – into one when the soaring price of oil was producing unimaginable wealth. Lacey revisited it in the long shadow of 9/11, Osama bin Laden and the souring of the special relationship with what political scientist Robert Vitalis dubbed “America’s Kingdom”.
--Marshal Zeringue
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