Oil Powers - by Victor McFarland (Paperback)

About the Book

Victor McFarland challenges the view that the U.S.-Saudi alliance is the inevitable consequence of American energy demand and Saudi Arabia's huge oil reserves. Oil Powers traces the growth of the alliance through a dense web of political, economic, and social connections that bolstered royal and executive power and the national-security state.

Book Synopsis

Since the mid-twentieth century, the United States and Saudi Arabia have built a close but often troubled alliance. In this critical history, Victor McFarland reveals the deep ties binding the leaders of the two nations.

Connecting foreign relations and domestic politics, McFarland challenges the view that the U.S.-Saudi alliance is the inevitable consequence of American energy demand and Saudi Arabia's huge oil reserves. Oil Powers traces the growth of the alliance through a dense web of political, economic, and social connections that bolstered royal and executive power and the national-security state. McFarland shows how U.S. and Saudi elites collaborated to advance their shared interests against rivals at home and abroad. During the 1970s, as higher oil prices enriched the Saudi government, destabilized the American economy, and changed the balance of power in the Middle East, leaders of both countries responded by consolidating their alliance. Facing objections from their own people, Washington and Riyadh chose to shield their partnership from public oversight and accountability. While American support empowered the Saudi royal family and helped the kingdom expand its influence across the Middle East, Saudi elites also encouraged a rightward shift in U.S. foreign and economic policy--with profound long-term effects. Oil Powers reveals the role of the U.S.-Saudi alliance in laying the groundwork for American military involvement in the Middle East and the entrenchment of a global order fueled by oil.

Review Quotes

McFarland charts the growth of deep connections between the Saudi government and American big business, lobbyists and other corporate interests in the Washington DC "swamp", and shows how these have entrenched executive power in the US, and royal power in Saudi Arabia, with the result that both governments have become less responsive to their people.-- "Times Literary Supplement"

Erudite and eloquent, Oil Powers is required reading for all those interested in U.S.-Saudi relations, oil politics, and the international political economy. McFarland makes a stirring argument for Saudi influence on the financialization and militarization of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East in the 1970s.--Christopher R. W. Dietrich, author of Oil Revolution: Anticolonial Elites, Sovereign Rights, and the Economic Culture of Decolonization

McFarland's superb, deeply researched book convincingly shows just how crucial the U.S.-Saudi alliance was in reorienting America's foreign policy and the global economy in the 1970s. The legacies of these policies--wars in the Middle East, the rise of finance, and others--continue to shape global affairs today.--Vanessa Ogle, author of The Global Transformation of Time: 1870-1950

The extraordinary relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia has influenced both countries, often for the worse. There is no better guide to the origins of this complex alliance than McFarland's new book. Anyone with an interest in the U.S. role in the Middle East should read it.--Odd Arne Westad, author of The Cold War: A World History

A lot of nonsense has been written since 9/11 about the history of United States-Saudi relations. Oil Powers gets it right.--Robert Vitalis, author of Oilcraft: The Myths of Scarcity and Security That Haunt U.S. Energy Policy

About the Author

Victor McFarland is assistant professor of history at the University of Missouri.