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Arabia & The Gulf

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The presence of oil under the ground of the Arabian Peninsula has forever altered the culture of the indigenous people. Now, they are societies that live by centuries old Islamic rules and yet they run on modern technology. Most of the work is done by labor imported from other Arab countries, Africa and south Asia. All of these changes began shortly after the end of the second world war, when the demand for oil began to skyrocket and the reserves in the largest consumer, the United States, began to shrink. Therefore, these photographs are a record of how the Arabs used to live.
The majority of the pages are devoted to pictures, although there is some explanatory text. Most of this is devoted to the recollections of the first Europeans to traverse the interior of the Arabian Peninsula. In most cases, their thoughts express surprise as to how much vegetation they encountered. The explorers went into the area considering it to be a vast, sandy wasteland, only to find groves of trees, gardens and a significant agriculture. The most memorable event recounted in the book is the description of girls taking a voluntary, impromptu shower in camel urine directly from the source.
Most of the people in the photographs are barefoot and dirty, very few women are not clothed from head to foot. The buildings are all made of stone, blocky, with few windows. Some of the photos are of the most powerful people of that time. The early photos are of Turkish officials and the later ones are of Kings, Sheiks and other dignitaries. A few include British officials, who had an enormous degree of influence in the Persian Gulf during this time period.
If you want a visual glimpse into how the people of the Arabian Peninsula lived before their oil had an impact, then this book is exactly what you are looking for. Very few of the pictures appear to be posed, so you see the people in their natural state.