Saudi Arabia’s Urban Revolution: Oil Urbanization and Protest in Al-Ahsaʾ/ The Eastern Province

This book discusses popular contention in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province (until 1952 the governorate of al-Ahsaʾ) under the aegis of petro-capitalism. The notion of urban revolution takes on a double meaning, namely the rapid urbanisation which broke with the region’s urban past and destroyed the oasis environment and merchant economy, and the types of resistance and rebellious fervour that were triggered by the concentration of labour and industrial production in the new urban centres. The book uses archival sources from the United States, Great Britain, and Saudi Arabia as well as accounts of Saudi oil workers, activists, and other contemporaries.