Inside The Mirage: America's Fragile Partnership With Saudi Arabia [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover)

~ Thomas Lippman (Author) "THE LANDSCAPE OF EASTERN Saudi Arabia gives off a stark white glare, the color of sun-bleached bones..." (more)
Key Phrases: silver riyals, senior princes, oil camp, Saudi Arabia, United States, Abdul Aziz (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia led to a relationship between the Saudis and Americans that made all the sense in the world and, at the same time, no sense at all. Economically, it was a dynamic and effective model. The Americans were able to purchase more oil as car ownership in the United States escalated throughout the 20th century, meanwhile the Saudis were able to take that money and use it to buy all the latest products and technology from the Americans and transform their country from a pre-industrial kingdom a bustling modern civilization (complete, today, with Starbucks, McDonalds, and shopping malls). Making all this happen, however, meant situating thousands of American civilians in a country in which they simply did not fit. Veteran Middle East scholar and journalist Thomas Lippman's Inside the Mirage examines the 70-year history of the Saudi-American relationship. While he touches on the troubling issues that came to light after the events of 9/11, Lippman's exploration of the quasi-suburban world inhabited by American employees and their families proves most fascinating. Many Americans profiled seem to have been transported out of an old episode of Leave it to Beaver and dropped, in tact, in the middle of a desert nation, dwelling in cordoned off communities and having little contact with the Saudis outside of what was professionally necessary. Cultural and religious differences provide stark contrast between the Americans and the fundamental form of Islam practiced by the Saudi royal family and prevalent throughout the kingdom. These differences combined with the inherent pressures of great wealth and big business to form a relationship that is vitally important to both countries but that was tenuous to begin with and, as Lippman explains has remained so ever since. --John Moe

From Publishers Weekly

With nearly two decades of experience writing about Saudi Arabia for the Washington Post as a Middle East bureau chief and national security correspondent, Lippman is as effective on today's street-level perspective as he is on a nearly century-long history of political and economic alliances between Saudis and Americans. While "Riyadh is just like Phoenix" on the surface, he proposes, Saudi Arabians have a radically different mindset that often includes resentment over what they perceive as American interference with their way of life. His insightful journalism points to a frayed relationship that may get worse before it gets better. B&w photos, 1 map not seen by PW.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; illustrated edition edition (January 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813340527
• ISBN-13: 978-0813340524
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #463,177 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Put this on your list, February 3, 2004

By	Shu Ping "ESL Book Review" (Saudi Arabia) - See all my reviews

A well researched and well documented book by a veteran expert. Lippman has been studying and writing about the Middle East for a long time. Inside the Mirage benefits from his extensive travels and interviews. It is an eye opening, people oriented account. Read The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Saudi Arabia to get an overview. Read this one to delve deeper.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Examination of the Long "Marriage of Convenience", January 4, 2005

By	David W. Southworth (Alexandria, VA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

Thomas Lippman has provided a prescient discussion of the long and interconnected relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. This relationship has been among the forefront of the problems U.S. policymakers have been reexamining since 9/11, and is among one of the most complicated of the U.S.'s bilateral relationships today.

At the turn of the 20th century the area that is now Saudi Arabia was then a disparate mixture of clans soon to be united by Abdul Aziz ibn Saud. The lifestyles of the inhabitants of the land were not much different than their ancestors from millennia before. Within a few years a relationship would be started that would change the world.

The first American geologists came to Saudi Arabia in the early 1930s. These geologists first found oil in 1933 and found the first large and profitable oil fields in 1938. From the time of that first large discovery of oil on, the U.S. and Saudi would a close mutual relationship. The Arab American Oil Company, or Aramco, was set up to extract the new oil finds. In exchange, the Americans were charged with creating a modern, industrial society in the Kingdom. For the next 60 years, American government officials, private contractors, and the U.S. military would undertake projects that would lead to such things as a modern infrastructure for moving oil out of the ground and the country (Aramco, Bechtel), would establish the Saudi national airline (TWA), create a modern civil service (the Ford Foundation). In addition, U.S. government officials helped establish a paper currency and a central bank. In addition, since 1951, U.S. policy has been to recognize the protection of Saudi Arabia from outside threats as a vital national interest. This policy meant supplying military equipment and training for five decades and condoning harsh treatment of Saudi dissidents or those who long for many of the freedoms Americans hold dear, such as freedom of religion and speech.

U.S. Middle East policy, including the invasion of Iraq, the inability of the Saudi leadership to create the conditions for its newly educated young people to find jobs, and other issues are all swirling to create conditions inimical to the continuation of this marriage of convenience. While Lippman is unable to provide answers or speculation about the future, he has provided a valuable service by giving a remarkably balanced telling the story of the long, complicated relationship.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensible, January 13, 2004

By	Grant F. Smith (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

Lippman presents readers a unique, detailed, highly readable and timely look at Saudi Arabia. This book is a needed starting point or supplement for readers striving the understand the role of traditional society, petroleum, development and politics on the Saudi-US relationship.

This is the new and indispensible tome for the library of any serious scholar of Saudi relations with the United States.