An Arabic-speaking Westerner who seized a rare opportunity to travel freely throughout Saudi Arabia, Bradley offers a dense, abstract study that reads more like the "culture and history" section of a guidebook than a juicy, insider account. But Bradley did get access to high-profile Saudis, most memorably to Osama bin Laden's nephew, with whom Bradley went on a picnic. An accomplished journalist and scholar who prefers facts to sensory-let alone salacious-details, Bradley successfully compiles research, information, geographical data and flat-footed descriptions of observed events to explain the political dynamics and historical roots of a strong authoritarian state, characterized particularly by the close relation between the Al-Saud ruling family and the conservative Wahhabis. He conveys a sense of a country fraught with fear, hostility and suspicion while remaining aloof from much of the drama he describes. Bradley is at his best when he writes about the press, providing what is truly an insider's look and untangling some of the knotted ties between the media, the Saudi government and the United States.
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Bradley arrived in Saudi Arabia to work as a journalist from 2001 to 2003 for the -English-language Arab News just as a ban on internal travel by Western journalists was lifted. Recounting visits to Saudi Arabia's regions, Bradley underscores the quasi-imperial composition of the regime: rule by the centrally situated al-Saud clan, and acquiescence to varying degrees by the tribal south, the Shiite east, and the historically commercial Hijaz along the Red Sea. The al-Saud alliance with the Wahhabi clergy completes Bradley's picture frame of the regime, although the picture itself is provided in details from the day-to-day lives of ordinary Saudis whom the author meets. The image posits the modern alongside the medieval, and the attractively hospitable against the repellently barbaric, though Bradley remains curious and engaged throughout. The geopolitics of oil is beyond the author's scope, but for readers interested in the social forces at work in the country, including terrorism, Bradley provides perceptive access to current trends. Gilbert Taylor
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Review
"Bradley has written an exceptional account of Saudi Arabia. Neither a one-dimension demonizer nor a sophisticated sycophant, Bradley spreads out Saudi Arabian society before his readers in all its fascinating diversity."--Joshua Teitelbaum
"Bradley refreshingly breaks away from officialdom and the stale post 9/11 clichés about the Kingdom to offer us an insightful first-person account of what life in Saudi Arabia is really like as the country slides towards latent crisis. This valuable book provides fascinating insights unavailable to most outsiders."--Graham E. Fuller
Book Description
Saudi Arabia: land of oil, terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, and a crucial American ally. As the only Western journalist to have extensively worked in the Saudi Kingdom, John R. Bradley is uniquely able to expose the turmoil that is shaking the House of Saud to its foundations. From the heart of the secretive Islamic kingdom's urban centers to its most remote mountainous terrain, from the homes of royalty to the slums of its poorest inhabitants, he provides intimate details and reveals underlying regional, religious, and tribal rivalries. Bradley highlights tensions generated by social change, focuses on the educational system, the increasing restlessness of Saudi youth faced with limited opportunities for cultural and political expression, and the predicament of Saudi women seeking opportunities but facing constraints.
From the Inside Flap
Saudi Arabia, a land of oil, terrorism, and Islamic fundamentalism, and a crucial American ally. In this highly revealing account of a kingdom in trouble, John R. Bradley explores the fault lines of a fractured society, providing uncommon insight into the people and society of Saudi Arabia.
Through the gripping narrative focusing on how regular Saudis live under the ruling Al-Saud family, Bradley exposes:
* How the ruling family's wealth breeds resentment among their people * How the contradictions between the Al-Saud's political promises and their actions undermine their legitimacy * How regional divisions within the kingdom threaten to tear it apart
From the heart of urban centers to Saudi Arabia's most remote mountainous terrain, from the royalty to the destitute who inhabit the kingdom's slums, Bradley introduces us to fascinating people and places and unveils the workings of this mysterious society.
He provides intimate details of underlying regional, religious, and tribal rivalries, and highlights the tensions generated by social change. Also revealed is the restlessness of Saudi youth torn between the security of tradition and the appeal of the West, and the predicament of Saudi women seeking opportunities but facing constraints.
Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis offers a unique and startling look at the present Saudi predicament, and a troubling view of the future.
About the Author
JOHN R. BRADLEY (johnrbradley.wordpress.com) was born in England and was educated at University College London, Dartmouth College in the United States, and Exeter College, Oxford. He is the author of four non-fiction books on the contemporary Arab world published by Palgrave Macmillan that draw heavily on his personal experience: Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis (2005); Inside Egypt: The Land of the Pharaohs on the Brink of a Revolution (2008; updated edition 2012); Behind the Veil of Vice: The Business and Culture of Sex in the Middle East (2010); and After the Arab Spring: How Islamists Hijacked the Middle East Revolts (2012). Bradley has been covering the Middle East for almost two decades. He has written essays, dispatches, reviews, and op-eds for numerous publications, including: The Washington Quarterly, The New Republic, The Times Literary Supplement, The Spectator, Salon, The London Telegraph, The Forward, The London Evening Standard, The New York Post, The London Sunday Times, Foreign Affairs, The Financial Times, The Daily Mail, The Independent, The Jewish Chronicle, The Washington Times, Newsweek, Asia Times, Prospect, and The Economist. He has been interviewed about the Middle East by CNN, the BBC, PBS, NPR, CBS, Fox News, Al-Jazeera English, Sky News, Russia Today, Channel 4 News, Bloomberg TV, and many other media outlets. Bradley's public lectures have most recently taken place at The Pacific Council for International Affairs in Los Angeles, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, London's Intelligence Squared, and The Athenaeum in Claremont, California.
