Synopses & Reviews
Review
“Petersen joins the debate about how to make sense of events during and after the October War of 1973 and the round of OPEC oil price rises associated with the Arab oil boycott. Conventional accounts see the moment as a setback for putative vital US interests, whether in terms of cheap energy or the end of the Western oil companies control of Persian Gulf oil reserves. These facts, which stress the USs increasing dependence on foreign oil, serve as explanations for the Nixon administration's acquiescence to this defeat. Petersen argues that recently declassified records from the Nixon administration strengthen the revisionist case. The US played an active role in the oil price rises, with the higher prices going to pay for arms purchases and base building that both protected the post-Vietnam budget and enmeshed the Iranian and Saudi client states turned allies in security ‘special relationships. Petersen argues that scholars have misunderstood the course of events and the transformations in oil states and markets. Recommended.” —Choice
Review
“Tore Petersen has succeeded in producing an innovative, thought-provoking and insightful study of an important, but neglected, aspect of the Nixon presidency. His book will be essential reading for those interested not merely in Anglo-American relations in the era of decolonization, but also the development of the modern Middle East.” —Simon C. Smith, University of Hull, author, Britains Revival and Fall in the Gulf: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial States, 1950-71
Review
“This is an important book, not only because of the new empirical material presented but equally, because of its intellectual ambition. It offers the reader not only a clear case study in the machinations of Realpolitik, but, just as importantly, an insight in to the more contemporary dilemmas that undue reliance on arms sales have come to pose for relations between the West, the Arab Gulf states and Iran.” —Clive Jones, University of Leeds, author, Britain and the Yemen Civil War 1962-1965
Synopsis
When the British Labour party announced the withdrawal of British forces from the Persian Gulf in January 1968, the United States faced a potential power vacuum in the area. The incoming Nixon administration preoccupied with the Soviet Union, China, and
About the Author
Tore T. Petersen is Professor of International and American Diplomatic History at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He is the author of The Middle East between the Great Powers: Anglo-American Conflict and Cooperation, 19527, and The Decline of the Anglo-American Middle East, 19611969.