Book Review: MBS by Ben Hubbard

MBS by Ben Hubbard is a journalistic investigation into the public life of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud that can be easily used as a a further basis for academic research into the Kingdom history and everyday life. 

After reading the well documented book - both from the journalistic as well as the academic point of view - by Kim Ghattas covering the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran I had relatively high expectations about Hubbard book. However, from many points of view it does not go beyond the news scren and the information that were already published in the international media about the Kingdom and its enigmatic Crown Prince. For instance, the case of the princes kept hostages in the Ritz Carlton or the killing of the journalist Jamal Kashoggi (which is covered in several chapters which is fine, but in my opinion the information could have been easily covered in one or maximum two, not because it is not relevant, but for simple reasons pertaining to the economics of the writing as such). 

By far, the final chapter, which puts into balance the good and the bad sides of the MBS dream of Saudi Arabia, is the most interesting and offers many directions for a further historical and political science investigation: the complete restructuration of the nature of power in the Kingdom, the elimination of the centers of power created by various members of the Royal House, starting the process of diminishing the influence of the clerics on the monarchy, the probable raprochement with the Jewish state. It is a pragmatic rather than an ideological approach which leaves open the long-term commitment and the degree of predictability of the Middle East political map. 

Probably I had high expectations from this book given its publicity and my own curiosity to finally find a good source to understand Saudi Arabia and its ruler. Hopefully, there will be more books and researches on this topic coming up in the next months and years, with a more serious, researched basis.

I´ve listened to the audio version of the book.

Rating: 3 stars

Academic Book Review: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the 40-Year Rivalry...

Kim Ghattas insider´s account of Hilary Clinton´s projects within the State Department, published under the title of The Secretary were a valuable investigation that goes beyond the usual mandate of a politically designated person. It revealed institutional mechanisms and behaviors that are there to maintain the continuity of an institution, the diplomacy, aimed to serve the national interests of a country no matter who is heading the country or the institution. 

Black Wave. Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Forty-Year Rivalry that Unraveled Culture, Religion and Collective Memory in the Middle East is an elaborated cultural and journalistic investigation that goes far beyong what we usually consume in the media nowadays. The book is based on a variety of sources, from history books to interviews with main players in the region or media in seven countries with the aim to give voice to the ´silent majority´ of people who are unable to have their say, caught in the terrible fight for geopolitical survival of their countries.

For someone like me, relatively familiar with the area and its players, but far from being an expert, Black Wave reads almost like a thriller where the roles between criminal and victims are free to switch. 

The starting point is the year 1979, where three important events took place in the region, whose reverberations continue to complicate the mental and geographical map of the region: the Iranian revolution, the siege of the Holy Mosque in Mecca by Saudi zealots and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (´the first battleground for jihad in modern times´). 40 years is 10 years over a generation and caught between religious fervors and cynical realpolitik games, those born after this year in the region are asking ´What Happened to Us?´. I would rather ask: ´What they did to us?´

The book evolves in waves, waves of an earthquake with movable epicenter, shaken by the permanent rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. A rivalry with many collateral victims and which viciously self-reproduces with no chance of end in sight. The identities those two countries created for themselves and the ways in which influenced the neighbouring countries are a fact. How many generations will be needed to challenge those structures, that in the case of Lebanon, for instance, are rotting the state from within, it´s a very sad and complex question.

Black Wave is a heavy read and definitely will need more than once to browse a couple of times more my notes before heading to other resources, particularly about religious differences within Islam and intellectual elites. The book creates a solid basis to build on further knowledge about specificities not necessarily within the research range of this terrible - and sometimes horrible - rivalry. 

As for the question of what the future has in store for the people living - and refusing the option of leaving - here, it is largely unknown. A new alignment of events like in 1979 might change everything, but predictions are neither the work of the historian nor the journalist. For sure, the Middle East will remain a valuable source for creating historical encounters, we are far from writing a final/conclusion chapter.