There have been so many outrageous stories about Saudi Arabia in recent years that I was excited to read a whole book about this strange country to learn more and gain some broader insight. Unfortunately, it was a bit disappointing. While deeply researched and packed with little-known facts, it was not at all engaging. The part about the origin of the kingdom was so flooded with names and minutiae that it was hard to follow.

So, it can certainly be a valuable reference, but if you are looking for a more coherent and compelling narrative, find something else.

Thanks to the publisher, Verso Books, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

I have mixed feelings on this. Parts were interesting and I did learn a lot about Saudi Arabia. However, the book felt very unfocused and in need of tighter editing because it would frequently ramble off into tangents on unrelated topics. The uneven nature of the book means it discusses some parts of Saudi history in the early 2oth century in great detail, but completely skips over large parts of the second half of the 20th century. Some parts of Saudi society were discussed in great detail while others were barely mentioned.

There were some odd moments where the author argues the chemical attacks in Syria weren't carried out by Assad's regime but were actually a false flag by Saudi-supported militants. At another point he claims a lot of the Israeli casualties during the October 7th attacks were friendly fire caused by the Israeli military. He ends the book by quoting a blooger who claims without any evidence that MBS has a serious drug addiction yet offers no explanation as to why this anonymous person is credible.

I knew a little about the history of Saudi Arabia going into this book, but was still interested to dive deeper and learn more about it. While I found the overall subject matter to be interesting, I thought the book jumped around a bit too much and couldn’t decide whether it was going to be organized thematically or chronologically, which did make it a bit hard to follow at times. I would have preferred more history and less political commentary in general. There were also sooo many parenthetical in the early chapters that got very repetitive, frequently repeating the same definitions over and over. It was also very strange that this eARC didn’t have an epilogue, I feel like I didn’t actually read a full book without it, and it’s hard to really give a complete review of the book when the ideas weren’t actually wrapped up in what I was given to review.