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Book Summary and Reviews of Inside the Kingdom by Robert Lacey

Inside the Kingdom by Robert Lacey

Inside the Kingdom

Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia

by Robert Lacey

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  • Published:
  • Oct 2009, 432 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Saudi Arabia is a country defined by paradox. It is a modern state driven by contemporary technology and possessed of vast oil deposits, yet its powerful religious establishment would have its customs and practices rolled back a thousand years to match those of the prophet Muhammad.

With Inside the Kingdom, journalist and bestselling author Robert Lacey has given us one of the most penetrating and insightful looks at Saudi Arabia ever produced. While living for years among the nation's princes and paupers, its clerics and progressives, Lacey endeavored to find out how the consequences of the 1970s oil boom produced a society at war with itself. Filled with stories that trace a path through the Persian Gulf War and the events of 9/11 to the oil market convulsions of today, Inside the Kingdom gives us a modern history of the Saudis in their own words, revealing a people attempting to reconcile life under religious law with the demands of a rapidly changing world. Their struggle will have powerful reverberations around the globe, and this rich work provides a penetrating look at a country no one can afford to ignore.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Lacey's eye for sweeping trends and the telling detail combined with the depth, breadth and evenhandedness of his research makes for an indispensable guide." - Publishers Weekly

"A culturally sensitive portrayal of a troubled - and potentially troublesome - region." - Kirkus Reviews

This information about Inside the Kingdom was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Nicholas Meyer is a noted author, screenwriter, and director. In addition to the Star Trek films, his many credits include an Oscar nomination for the screenplay of The Seven Per-Cent Solution (adapted from his New York Times bestseller), writing and directing the classic SF thriller Time After Time, and directing The Day After, the controversial film about nuclear war that became the most watched movie ever televised. Most recently, he adapted Philip Roth's novella The Dying Animal for the screen as Elegy.

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