Table of Contents

Contents @toc4:Foreword xxx Cast of Characters xxx @toc2:1. Captive Narratives: A Brief and Unexceptional Introduction to the History of Firms and States 1 @toc1:Part One. THE NEAREST FARAWAY PLACE 000 @toc2:2. Arabian Frontiers 000 3. American Camp 000 4. The Wizards of Dhahran 000 @toc1:Part Two. DESIRE'S EMPTY QUARTER 000 @toc2:5. Ayyam al-Kadalak (Days of the Cadillac) 000 6. Eye of the Desert 000 7. El Jefe Rojo 000 8. America's Kingdom 000 @toc4:Afterword 000 Acknowledgments 000 Notes 000 Bibliography 000 Index 000 Map and photographs follow page 000

About the Author

Robert Vitalis is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is author of When Capitalists Collide: Business Conflict and the End of Empire in Egypt (1995) and co-editor of Counter-Narratives: History, Contemporary Society, and Politics in Saudi Arabia and Yemen (2004).

Reviews

"America's Kingdom comes as a pleasant surprise... a scholarly and readable book on the interaction between Saudi society and Aramco, the US oil giant that had its beginnings when the Saudi government granted its first concessions to Standard Oil of California in 1933. Combining history with political anthropology, Vitalis sheds a bright light on the origins and less savory aspects of the Saudi-US relationship." - London Review of Books "If good historiography is about unveiling hidden connections, then America's Kingdom must stand among the best that the discipline has to offer... The book presents a wealth of previously unknown facts and anecdotes, is written more wittily than any other Saudi-related book, and is meticulously referenced, drawing on sources from eight different (American) archives." - Business History Review "America's Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier by Robert Vitalis is a devastating critique of the oil giant Aramco and how strike-breaking and racism cemented the US-Saudi relationship." - Tariq Ali, The Guardian "Groundbreaking is a word too often used in assessing historical scholarship. Yet its application to Robert Vitalis's book is nothing less than a necessity. The result of painstaking research in not only heretofore unused but previously unknown records, the book makes a major contribution to a variety of fields: international history, U.S.-Saudi relations, business history, American race history, and more... Solidly grounded in both archival materials and multidisciplinary insights, his study transforms our understanding not only about ARAMCO in Saudi Arabia but also about the transplantation of American society abroad. Those seeking to explain the present U.S. place in the world should consider it essential reading." - American Historical Review "Rich, marvelously researched, and densely argued... If you want to understand the histories of race, capitalism, and politics that have undergirded U.S. policy in the Middle East - if you want to understand not only why oil matters but how its structures have structured us - then America's Kingdom is an excellent place to begin." - American Quarterly "A brilliant, original, and stimulating book,America's Kingdom rewrites the history of America's relationship with Saudi Arabia. Placing the relationship in a wider context of U.S. business interests abroad, Vitalis offers a radically new view of the motives and methods that shaped America's decisive encounter with the Arab world." - Tim Mitchell, New York University "Robert Vitalis makes us see the world in new ways. Arguing that the American imperial tradition reflects less a classic expansion of sovereignty than a volatile mix of private business and institutionalized racism, he documents the export of this tradition from the American West to the Arabian Peninsula, where it formed the crucible in which the modern state of Saudi Arabia was born. No one will understand Saudi Arabia - or the United States - in quite the same way after reading this book." - Lisa Anderson, Dean, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University "There are a lot of books written on the history of oil. Most are sensationalist, simplistic, and basically wrong. America's Kingdom is sobering, smart, and exceedingly hard to fault. I now understand why ARAMCO is what it is today: the most capable national oil company in the world, still the largest, and the only hope against an energy crisis in the near future. It's a delicious read for those of us who spend too much time obsessed by the world of oil." - Fareed Mohamedi, PFC Energy