The Battle for Saudi Arabia: Royalty, Fundamentalism, and Global Power

The paradoxical nature of 'America's favourite dictatorship' have always puzzled me. This book devles into analysing and describing the oppressive nature of Saudi Arabia without adopting an Orientalist critique. This book has proven that you do not need to demonise Islam, make sweeping generalisations about Muslims, and homogenise the 'Arab world', when critiquing Saudi...more

The paradoxical nature of 'America's favourite dictatorship' have always puzzled me. This book devles into analysing and describing the oppressive nature of Saudi Arabia without adopting an Orientalist critique. This book has proven that you do not need to demonise Islam, make sweeping generalisations about Muslims, and homogenise the 'Arab world', when critiquing Saudi Arabia. Touching on numerous issues such as human rights, women, and the Wahabiyyeh doctrine, AbuKhalil writes well, particularly in his critique of the Saudi-US alliance. It makes you wonder, while America was obsessed with 'freeing' the Iraq people, why can it not be just as passionate about freeing the Saudi people who are even more oppressed? the simple answer is: Oil, greed, and wealth. This is why there are so many paradoxes in the Saudi governance, and in the US hypocrisy towards the Middle East.   hide