Synopses & Reviews
"A thorough analysis of the country and of America's relationship with it. . . . Useful for readers seeking to understand the complexities of Saudi society and U.S. interests."
Library Journal
"Many illuminating essays."
The Economist
"A welcome and breathtaking burst of new knowledge. There is no volume today that contains so much useful material."
Joshua Teitelbaum, author of The Rise and Fall of the Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia
"Aarts and Nonneman have organized the essays to complement one another in tone and content and to highlight both empirical and theoretical approaches."
Library Journal
"This highly informative edited volume goes a long way in offering a much-needed crudite and scholarly analysis of contemporary Saudi Arabia."
Highly recommended, CHOICE
"Saudi Arabia in the Balance is far and away the best book on the politics of contemporary Saudi Arabia. The contributors are serious, long-time students of the country; many have spent considerable time there. They engage the issues roiling Saudi politics with depth, sophistication and an attention to detail that is commendable. They represent a spectrum of views on the country, but grind no ideological axes. In all, it is a perfect antidote to the rash of shallow and sensationalist books on Saudi Arabia in recent years."F. Gregory Gause, author of Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States.
"This book achieves its own weighty balance...a successful venture in international scholarship and a coherent book."
Foreign Affairs
"Any educated reader, and to a greater extent policy analyst, will find this volume precious in understanding a country that is too often either criticized a priori or praised sycophantically."
Matteo Legrenzi, Cranfield University, UK
Saudi Arabia in the Balance brings together today's leading scholars in the field to investigate the domestic, regional, and international affairs of a Kingdom whose policies have so far eluded the outside world. With the passing of King Fahd and the installation of King Abdullah, a contemporary understanding of Saudi Arabia is essential as the Kingdom enters a new era of leadership and particularly when many Saudis themselves are increasingly debating, and actively shaping, the future direction of domestic and foreign affairs.
Each of the essays, framed in the aftermath of 9/11 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, offers a systematic perspective into the country's political and economic realities as well as the tension between its regional and global roles. Important topics covered include U.S. and Saudi relations; Saudi oil policy; the Islamist threat to the monarchy regime; educational opportunities; the domestic rise of liberal opposition; economic reform; the role of the royal family; and the country's foreign relations in a changing international world.
Contributors: Paul Aarts, Madawi Al-Rasheed, Rachel Bronson, Iris Glosemeyer, Steffen Hertog, Yossi Kostiner, Stéphane Lacroix, Giacomo Luciani, Monica Malik, Roel Meijer, Tim Niblock, Gerd Nonneman, Michaela Prokop, Abdulaziz Sager, Guido Steinberg
Review
“A thorough analysis of the country and of America's relationship with it. . . . Useful for readers seeking to understand the complexities of Saudi society and U.S. interests.”
“Serves best as a source of information and some insight into the tactical questions facing the Saudi and U.S. ruling classes.”
“Many illuminating essays.”
“A welcome and breathtaking burst of new knowledge. There is no volume today that contains so much useful material.”
“Aarts and Nonneman have organized the essays to complement one another in tone and content and to highlight both empirical and theoretical approaches.”
Review
“A brilliant and inspiring collection of analyses from world-renowned international social theorists and political economists, far-reaching in its implications for our understanding, not just of the current crisis, but of its historical roots and the importance of politics to the future of global socio-economic structures.”
-Kate Nash,author of The Cultural Politics of Human Rights
Review
“There may be a silver lining to the global financial meltdown of 2008, for it has made possible a book such as this one. In Business as Usual, Craig Calhoun and Georgi Derluguian have brought together some of ‘the best and brightest in the business and given them a most unusual task: to tell the story of the financial crisis in all its complexity, in a manner that is both clear and precise. The result is critical social science at its best: more than explanation, prediction or prescription, this book offers the promise of actual understanding.”
-Ivan Ascher,University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Review
“Many illuminating essays.”
-The Economist,
Review
“A welcome and breathtaking burst of new knowledge. There is no volume today that contains so much useful material.”
-Joshua Teitelbaum,author of The Rise and Fall of the Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia
Review
“Aarts and Nonneman have organized the essays to complement one another in tone and content and to highlight both empirical and theoretical approaches.”
-Library Journal,
Synopsis
Saudi Arabia in the Balance brings together todays leading scholars in the field to investigate the domestic, regional, and international affairs of a Kingdom whose policies have so far eluded the outside world. With the passing of King Fahd and the installation of King Abdullah, a contemporary understanding of Saudi Arabia is essential as the Kingdom enters a new era of leadership and particularly when many Saudis themselves are increasingly debating, and actively shaping, the future direction of domestic and foreign affairs.
Each of the essays, framed in the aftermath of 9/11 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, offers a systematic perspective into the countrys political and economic realities as well as the tension between its regional and global roles. Important topics covered include U.S. and Saudi relations; Saudi oil policy; the Islamist threat to the monarchy regime; educational opportunities; the domestic rise of liberal opposition; economic reform; the role of the royal family; and the country's foreign relations in a changing international world.
Contributors: Paul Aarts, Madawi Al-Rasheed, Rachel Bronson, Iris Glosemeyer, Steffen Hertog, Yossi Kostiner, Stéphane Lacroix, Giacomo Luciani, Monica Malik, Roel Meijer, Tim Niblock, Gerd Nonneman, Michaela Prokop, Abdulaziz Sager, Guido Steinberg
Synopsis
Situates the current crisis in the historical trajectory of the capitalist world-system, showing how the crisis was made possible not only by neoliberal financial reforms but by a massive turn away from manufacturing things of value towards seeking profit from financial exchange and credit. Much more basic than the result of a few financial traders cheating the system, this is a potential historical turning point. In original essays, the contributors establish why the system was ripe for crisis of the past, and yet why this meltdown was different. The volume concludes by asking whether as deep as the crisis is, it may contain seeds of a new global economy, what role the US will play, and whether China or other countries will rise to global leadership.
Contributors include: Giovanni Arrighi, Gopal Balakrishnan, Manuel Castells, Daniel Chirot, Fernando Coronil, Nancy Fraser, James K. Galbraith, David Harvey, Caglar Keyder, Beverly J. Silver, and Immanuel Wallerstein.
The three volumes can purchased individually or as a set.
About the Author
Craig Calhoun is President of the Social Science Research Council and University Professor of the Social Sciences at New York University. His most recent book is
Nations Matter: Culture, History, and the Cosmopolitan Dream.
Georgi Derluguian is Associate Professor of International Studies and Sociology at Northwestern University and is the author of Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-System Biography.