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

by Claudia Ghrawi (Author)

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.

Author Biography

Claudia Ghrawi is an independent researcher who has worked at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin (2011-2021). She studied history in Potsdam and Berlin and is co-editor of Claiming and Making Muslim Worlds. Religion and Society in the Context of the Global (De Gruyter 2021).