Making the Desert Modern: Americans, Arabs, and Oil on the Saudi Frontier, 1933–1973

178 Pages·2015·2.54 MB·English

by  Chad H. Parker

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A volume in the series
Culture, Politics, and the Cold War
edited by
Christian G. Appy and edwin A. martini
other titles in the s eries
James T. Fisher, Dr. America: The Lives of Robert Surbrug Jr., Beyond Vietnam: The
Thomas A. Dooley, 1927–1961 Politics of Protest in Massachusetts,
Daniel Horowitz, Betty Friedan and the 1974–1990
Making of “The Feminine Mystique”: The Larry Grubbs, Secular Missionaries: Americans
American Left, the Cold War, and Modern and African Development in the 1960s
Feminism Robert A. Jacobs, The Dragon’s Tail: Americans
Tom Engelhardt, The End of Victory Culture: Face the Atomic Age
Cold War America and the Disillusioning of Andrew J. Falk, Upstaging the Cold War:
a Generation
American Dissent and Cultural Diplomacy,
Christian G. Appy, ed., Cold War 1940–1960
Constructions: The Political Culture of United Jerry Lembcke, Hanoi Jane: War, Sex, and
States Imperialism, 1945–1966
Fantasies of Betrayal
H. Bruce Franklin, Vietnam and Other Anna G. Creadick, Perfectly Average: The
American Fantasies
Pursuit of Normality in Postwar America
Robert D. Dean, Imperial Brotherhood: Gender Kathleen Donohue, ed., Liberty and Justice for
and the Making of Cold War Foreign Policy
All? Rethinking Politics in Cold War America
Lee Bernstein, The Greatest Menace: Jeremy Kuzmarov, Modernizing Repression:
Organized Crime in Cold War America
Police Training and Nation-Building in
David C. Engerman, Nils Gilman, Mark H. the American Century
Haefele, and Michael E. Latham, eds., Roger Peace, A Call to Conscience: The Anti–
Staging Growth: Modernization,
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Development, and the Global Cold War
Edwin A. Martini, Agent Orange: History,
Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale’s Cold War
Science, and the Politics of Uncertainty
James Peck, Washington’s China: The National
Sandra Scanlon, The Pro-War Movement:
Security World, the Cold War, and the Origins
Domestic Support for the Vietnam War
of Globalism
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Edwin A. Martini, Invisible Enemies: The Conservatism
American War on Vietnam, 1975–2000
Patrick Hagopian, American Immunity: War
Tony Shaw, Hollywood’s Cold War Crimes and the Limits of International Law
Maureen Ryan, The Other Side of Grief: The Matthew W. Dunne, A Cold War State of
Home Front and the Aftermath in American Mind: Brainwashing and Postwar American
Narratives of the Vietnam War Society
David Hunt, Vietnam’s Southern Revolution: David Kieran, Forever Vietnam: How a
From Peasant Insurrection to Total War Devisive War Changed American Public
Patrick Hagopian, The Vietnam War in Memory
American Memory: Veterans, Memorials,
Andrea Friedman, Citizenship in Cold War
and the Politics of Healing
America: The National Security State and the
Jeremy Kuzmarov, The Myth of the Addicted Possibilities of Dissent
Army: Vietnam and the Modern War

on Drugs
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Making the Desert
MoDern
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Making the Desert
MODERN
Americans, Arabs, and Oil on the Saudi Frontier,
1933–1973
CHAD H. PARKER
University of Massachusetts Press • Amherst & Boston
Copyright © 2015 by University of Massachusetts Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 978-1-62534-157-0 (paper); 156-3 (hardcover)
Designed by Jack Harrison
Set in Adobe Minion Pro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parker, Chad H., 1973–
Making the desert modern : Americans, Arabs, and oil on the Saudi frontier, 1933–1973 /
Chad H. Parker.
pages cm. — (Culture, politics, and the Cold War)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-62534-157-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-62534-156-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Arabian American Oil Company.
2. Petroleum industry and trade—Saudi Arabia—History—20th century.
3. Economic development—Saudi Arabia—History—20th century.
4. Saudi Arabia—Foreign relations—United States. 5. United States—Foreign relations—Saudi Arabia.
6. Saudi Arabia—Economic conditions. 7. Saudi Arabia—Social conditions.
8. Saudi Arabia—History—1932– I. Title.
HD9576.S35A763 2015
338.7'62233809538—dc23
2014050135
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1. Aramco’s World 15
2. Constructing Balance 35
3. Curing Antiquity 55
4. Man-Made Disease 74
5. Aramco’s Eden 91
Conclusion 119
Notes 129
Index 157
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