The fifth in the CAIW series, this title reflects 50 years of experience of 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 modernisation of the Kingdom’s oil industry has been a smooth process: its oilfields are highly sophisticated. However, social modernisation has not kept pace. ‘Reform’, long a preoccupation among the Peninsula’s leaders does not necessarily go hand in hand with religion.