For our October NEWTON bouquet, we chose to focus on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Both the Kingdom and the ruling regime, led by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), have recently come under scrutiny after the disappearance of Washington Post Journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi’s murder at the hands of regime agents has led to renewed public and media interest in Saudi Arabia, the kingdom’s history, its authoritarian regime, its past and present human rights violations, its role in regional and international politics, its oil economy, its current modernization initiatives, and its global exportation of the Wahhabi and Salafi brands of Islam, among other things. The following NEWTON selections address these and realted topics to varying extents.
1) Madawi Al-Rasheed, Muted Modernists: The Struggle Over Divine Politics in Saudi Arabia
“I use the term modernist to analyze the discourse and strategies of a limited number of `ulama, activists, and intellectuals who are stretching the limits of interpretation of foundational Islamic texts in order to promote new thinking about politics and society.”
2) Paul Aarts and Carolien Roelants, Saudi Arabia: A Kingdom in Peril
“What the book certainly tries to do is give a balanced, though critical, analysis of Saudi Arabia’s domestic and external challenges—without joining the one-sided “Saudi-bashing choir” that seems to grow by the day.”
3) Toby Matthiesen, The Other Saudis: Shiism, Dissent, and Sectarianism
“The book makes a contribution to the literature on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region, where the Shi‘i minorities have hitherto been largely discussed on a quite superficial level.”
4) Steffen Hertog, Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats: Oil and the State in Saudi Arabia
“The main topics the book touches on are the debate about the “resource curse” and the post-World War II history of the Saudi state and its impact on local society.”
5) Madawi Al-Rasheed, ed., Salman's Legacy: The Dilemmas of a New Era in Saudi Arabia
“This is a multi-disciplinary edited book, with contributors exploring the challenges facing Saudi Arabia under the leadership of newly crowned King Salman ibn Abdulaziz”
6) Courtney Freer, Rentier Islamism: The Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gulf Monarchies
“I wanted to de-exceptionalize the Gulf by showing that the same Islamist movements that hold appeal in other parts of the Middle East also have a following there.”
7) Pascal Menoret, Joyriding in Riyadh: Oil, Urbanism, and Revolt
“The Saudi system of power, often described as vernacular, “Islamic,” or exceptional, relies in reality on transnational networks, arms sales, corruption, and on the creation at home of an economy that is both connected to and insulated from international dynamics.”
8) James L. Gelvin, The New Middle East: What Everyone Needs to Know
“The Saudi tail will continue to wag the American dog, governments in the region will continue to jail prisoners of conscience, and Syria and Yemen will continue their descent into hell.”
9) Sheila Carapico, ed., Arabia Incognita: Dispatches from Yemen and the Gulf
“Both the Houthi-Salih militias and the Saudi-led coalition commit war crimes, but only the latter have fighter jets, battleships, and help from the US including surveillance and in-air refueling.”
10) Toby Matthiesen, Sectarian Gulf: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab Spring That Wasn't
“Mainstream media and many academics were generally unwilling or unable to talk about these developments in the Gulf, in part because they were afraid that Gulf funding to universities and advertising in news outlets might be cut.”
