Inside the Kingdom

Starred review from July 27, 2009
Lacey (The Kingdom
) delves into the paradoxes in Saudi society—where women are forbidden to drive but are more likely to attend universities than men—and why this nation yielded most of the terrorist team on September 11, Osama bin Laden and one of the largest group of foreign fighters sent to Guantánamo from Afghanistan. Lacey's conversational tone and anecdotal approach to storytelling and analysis gives us a vivid portrait of personal and political life in Saudi Arabia's public and personal spheres, the traditions that govern everyday life, the country's journey from relative liberalism on the tide of extreme oil wealth in the 1980s to a resurgence of traditionalism. Lacey shows us a land where the governing dynasty gives rehabilitated Guantánamo returnees an $18,000 stipend toward their marriage dowry, and 15 young girls died in a schoolhouse fire in 2002 because they were not properly veiled, and religious police forbade them to escape and prevented firefighters from entering the burning building. Lacey's eye for sweeping trends and the telling detail combined with the depth, breadth and evenhandedness of his research makes for an indispensable guide.

June 3, 1988
The author of Johnny's Song (which earned him the title of National Poet Laureate of the Vietnam Veterans of America) attempts to reconcile his Vietnam experiences with his return to America. These poems are a veteran's raw, heartfelt pleas for lasting peace and for a reevaluation of patriotism, nationalism and a government that wars ``as a solution to economics/or as a perpetuation of social justice.'' Verses shift from jarring, often graphic accounts of the atrocities Mason witnessed to strangely peaceful images of his childhood, family and friends. These juxtapositions would be more effective were they not so explicitly spelled out; Mason explains rather than illustrates, and he frequently lapses into didactic sermonizing. Although his message is certainly worthy, Mason's tendency to rely on political rhetoric rather than craft (in ``A Living Memorial,'' for example, he writes, ``It is the courage of America/ and the strength of our world/ that the essence of our patriotism/ is not nationalism,/ it is humanity'') makes his work more appropriate to forms of expression other than poetry. The introduction by film director Oliver Stone adds nothing of value to this volume.

August 1, 2009
A lucid exploration of profound divisions in Saudi society, many of which are of immediate concern to the West.

Dismissing an American editor's characterization of his subjects as a"bunch of camel jockeys," Arabia expert Lacey (Great Tales from English History, Volume 3, 2006, etc.) accords great respect to the House of Saud, which knitted three distinct nations into modern Saudi Arabia. Yet, the author speculates, without Saud's rise,"the horrors of 9/11 would never have been inflicted on the United States, since Osama Bin Laden's poisonous hostility to the west was a brew that only Saudi Arabia could have concocted." Lacey patiently explains the rise of Wahhabist orthodoxy and its puritanical view of the world, in which so slight an infraction as enjoying music would earn a Muslim a spot in the inferno. That orthodoxy, ultimately, underlies the jihadist aspirations of bin Laden and al-Qaeda, who want ensure that such infractions are properly punished on Earth. The Saudi royal family—of whom bin Laden is a distant cousin—does not go uncriticized by the Wahhabist mullahs. Provocatively, Lacey explores the Sunni-Shia split in Saudi society, noting that the despised Shia minority was quick to come to the nation's defense during the Gulf War, even as the Wahhabists decried the presence of American troops on Saudi soil and encouraged resistance. The author also describes the assassination of Shia saint Ali as"one of the earliest victims of Islamic terrorism"—a statement that should cause a stir in Riyadh. What should win him respect there, however, is his evenhanded treatment of Saudi efforts to introduce modernizing reforms and to curb homegrown terrorism in the wake of 9/11, including the rehabilitation of jihadists released from Guantánamo. Lacey concludes by noting that Saudi Arabia, once believed to be a steadfast ally of the West, has been forging links with new partners—especially China—that will change geopolitics in the years to come.

A culturally sensitive portrayal of a troubled—and potentially troublesome—region.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

October 19, 2009
Lacey's (Monarch: The Life and Reign of Elizabeth II) second study of Saudi Arabia acts as an antecedent to his portrait of the Saudi dynasty in The Kingdom. Here, he examines the tension between conservative religious players and the secular pressures from abroad and within the country over the past 25 years. Through extensive interviews and a broad reading of more specialized works, Lacey brings together colorful anecdotes, vivid narrative, and character sketches to create a lively picture of Saudi society, its authoritarian and benevolent monarchy, and its complex international role. Verdict Lacey skillfully interweaves major political issues and social practices that will interest and inform general readers.-Elizabeth R. Hayford, Associated Coll. of the Midwest, Evanston, IL

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2009
Lacey, an author of popular works of British history, recently lived in Saudi Arabia, yielding this view of that countrys internal politics. Launching his narrative from 1979, the year when Islamic fanatics shocked the Saudi royal family with a bloody invasion of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Lacey expresses his purpose as divining what in Saudi Arabian society nurtures religious extremism. Despite this serious intent, Lacey writes buoyantly, his prose expressing interest in people whose life stories he gathers and integrates into his overall theme. Introducing a young man fired by religion to burn down a video store, a bin Laden recruit retired from his jihadi career, and a woman who imparts her experience of Saudi male attitudes toward women, Lacey exemplifies their cases as political factors, among others such as tribes and the Wahhabi clerical establishment, that the House of Saud balances to maintain its rule. The dynastys complex internal power lines and the personalities of its three most recent kings (Khaled, Fahd, and presently Abdullah) inform Laceys perceptive account of a society pulled between modernity and Islamic Fundamentalism.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)