Kuwait

"Ismael covers first the period from the foundation of Kuwait in the early 18th century, when the land was inhabited by camel-breeding bedouins, to the beginning of oil exportation at the end of World War II. She describes its decline from a thriving center of maritime commerce to an impoverished pearling backwash by the end of the war. In the second part she addresses the postwar impact of oil wealth on Kuwait and examines resulting changes in Kuwaiti society. Describing transformations in the world oil economy in the 1980s, Ismael adds a new section to chronicle changes in the political economy of the Gulf that threatened the superstructure of the region (constituted of absolute monarchies in rentier states). She sees Iraq's invasion of Kuwait as part of the larger political reality in the Gulf: change in the region will be forestalled by Western industrial powers at any price. Maintenance of the status quo now is dependent on military force, not political processes, and overt repression increasingly will replace cooptation as the means of quieting any opposition."--Publisher description.