Description
Book SynopsisFor fifty-five years, the United States and Saudi Arabia were solid partners. Then came the 9/11 attacks, which sorely tested that relationship. In Thicker than Oil, Rachel Bronson reveals why the partnership became so intimate and how the countries'' shared interests sowed the seeds of today''s most pressing problem-Islamic radicalism.Drawing on a wide range of archival material, declassified documents, and interviews with leading Saudi and American officials, and including many colourful stories of diplomatic adventures and misadventures, Bronson chronicles a history of close, and always controversial, contacts. She argues that contrary to popular belief the relationship was never simply about oil for security. Saudi Arabia''s geographic location and religiously motivated foreign policy figured prominently in American efforts to defeat godless communism. From Africa to Afghanistan, Egypt to Nicaragua, the two worked to beat back Soviet expansion. But decisions made for hard-headed Co
Trade Review"Rachel Bronson's Thicker than Oil: America's Uneasy Partnership with Saudi Arabia takes on an important subject matter, the history of the U.S.--Daudi relationship, and makes an important contribution to the literature. Bronson's book is thoroughly researched, with extensive citations to diplomatic accounts, autobiographies, government documents, and intersting interviews woven into a storyboard text that is lieable and enjoyable to read."--Amy Myers Jaffe, International Journal of Middle East Studies
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Prologue 1: Oil, God, and Real Estate 2: Dropping Anchors in the Middle East 3: An Islamic Pope 4: Shifting Sands 5: Double, Double, Oil and Trouble 6: "A New and Glorious Chapter" 7: Mobilizing Religion 8: Begin or Reagan 9: "We Support Some, They Support Some" 10: The Cold War Ends with a Bang 11: Parting Ways 12: September 11 and Beyond 13: Reconfiguring the U.S.-Saudi Strategic Partnership Notes Selected Bibliography Index
