The Middle East fascinates me, so this book by Karen Elliott House (2012) kept me interested throughout. I posted a couple of short excerpts recently which highlight the various topics that are examined. My main takeaway is that the country is headed for trouble. The Al Saud dynasty has been holding on for a great long time, but will eventually succumb to the contradictions at play. From trying to be the main propagator and global center of Islam on the one hand, yet corrupting the practice to protect the Al Saud on the other (by being a historical benefactor to terrorists, until those groups turned on the Kingdom), to still having thoughts of societal reform (for women, for education, etc.) that fly in the face of the fundamentalists who still largely rule the roost on the third hand. It is a backward society in many respects. And if people in the United States think we have a problem of those with a lot and many more with very little, Saudi Arabia takes that dynamic to its irrational extreme. So, in a world with great difficulties, I think the chaos could get even greater when the "swing producer" of oil finally faces its own version of the Arab Spring, whatever form it takes.
Overall, well-written and useful.
