The Kingdom, Robert Lacey
The Kingdom, Robert Lacey
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The Kingdom
Arabia and the House of Saud

Author: Robert Lacey

Narrator: Frederick Davidson

Unabridged: 22 hr 47 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/01/1994

Synopsis

The Kingdom is the story of a country—a country of astonishing contrasts, where routine computer printouts open with the words “In the name of God,” where men who grew up in goat-hair tents now dominate the money markets of the world, and where murderers and adulterers are publicly executed in the street. By its own reckoning, this country is just entering the fifteenth century.The Kingdom is also the story of a family—a family that has fought its way from poverty and obscurity into wealth and power the likes of which the world has never known, a family characterized by fierce loyalty among its members, ruthlessness toward its enemies, and dedication to one of the world’s most severe and demanding creeds.The Kingdom is Saudi Arabia—the only country in the world to bear the name of the family that rules it.

About Robert Lacey

Robert Lacey is a British historian and author of twenty books, including several New York Times bestsellers. He is the historical consultant to the television series The Crown, having worked previously with Peter Morgan on his Oscar-winning movie The Queen.

About Frederick Davidson

Frederick Davidson (1932–2005), also known as David Case, was one of the most prolific readers in the audiobook industry, recording more than eight hundred audiobooks in his lifetime, including over two hundred for Blackstone Audio. Born in London, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and performed for many years in radio plays for the British Broadcasting Company before coming to America in 1976. He received AudioFile’s Golden Voice Award and numerous Earphones Awards and was nominated for a Grammy for his readings.

Reviews

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Quotes

“A readable history of how Saudi Arabia was formed in the early 1900s by a man named Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd ar-Rahman ibn Faisal al-Saud (often known in the West as Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud), who reclaimed power over the region after his family had lost it in the 1700s. Lacey, who is a friend of Khashoggi’s, the disappeared journalist, threads together the story of how Abd al-Aziz built a kingdom ‘with a sword of steel and a sword of flesh.’" New York Times Book Review

“In Saudi Arabia, Robert Lacey had the kind of access most journalists only dream of.” David Brancaccio, American radio and television journalist

“[Lacey’s] grasp of Saudi thinking and purposes is most intensely felt in the final, 1973-and-after, section—where he is able to make sympathetically intelligible, even inescapable, everything from the oil boycott to the Saudis’ nonconservation of their one valuable resource, from their tolerance of internal dissidence to their outrage at the TV-film Death of a Princess.” Kirkus Reviews

“Frederick Davidson’s well-paced, crisp and forthright reading commands the listener’s attention, and his able attempts at varied accents are welcome…The supercilious edge to his voice reiterates the patronizing and dismissive attitude of the Western superpowers towards the Sa’udis before the 1973 oil crisis.” AudioFile

Awards

  • New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice
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