This meticulously researched book provides a timely and absolutely indispensable guide to the nations of the Persian Gulf on which the West's security and oil supplies critically depend- their political regimes and policies, their economies and the mind-sets of their leaders. But it does more than that. Dr. Kelly, one of the world's leading authorities on the modern history of Arabia and the Gulf, for the first time tells the full story of how the West's supine policies deliberately pulled us out of the region and thus led inevitably to the dangerous power vacuum that now exists in the world's most important strategic area. The author also shows that one cannot fully understand the dangerous situation in which the West now stands with regard to its oil supplies without understanding the nature of the regimes in power in the Arabian peninsula. -- from Book Jacket.

This book examines the changing image of the Arab Gulf States in the West. It addresses the question of perception in international relations and how the Arab States of the Gulf have pursued various endeavors to project themselves into Western imagination. The book chapters generate ideas on how perceptions came about and ways to improve cultural and political realities on the ground in the Arab Gulf States. Thus, it paves the way for a new area of research in the field of Gulf Studies that extends beyond traditional international relations frameworks by weaving elements of intercultural communication into the mix. Recognizing, yet extending beyond, a traditionally realist framework, which has dominated the analysis of Arab Gulf States' foreign relations with western countries, this book tackles both the materialist and the symbolic in the efforts and initiatives launched by the Arab Gulf States. Some chapters maintain a social-scientific approach about the politics of the Arab Gulf States in the West from an international relations lens. Others employ theoretical frameworks that were founded on the notion of the "encounter," with anthropological lenses and concepts of intercultural communication. In addition to the value of this academic research agenda, as such, some of the chapters also touch upon the added importance of policy-oriented input. As the Arab Gulf States actively engage with the West, the book would widely appeal to students and researchers of Gulf politics and international relations.

This volume provides a broadly comparative and historical re-examination of the fundamental strategic dilemmas that confront the Western world in the Persian Gulf region. This systematic study of how the West has defined and dealt with its security interests in this region reveals three central strategic dilemmas: strategy versus capability, globalism versus regionalism, and unilateralism versus collectivism. The first part of the book focuses on US policy with particular emphasis on the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The author explains why there has been a persistent gap between American perceptions of the Middle East and the political and strategic realities of the region. The second part of the book examines the frustrated efforts of NATO members to form a cooperative response to their collective interests in the region.

A new look at the West Florida and Alabama Gulf shoreline, in the context of burgeoning development and revised coastal regulations.

Winner • Pulitzer Prize for History Winner • Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction Finalist • National Book Critics Circle Award (Nonfiction) A New York Times Notable Book of the Year Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, NPR, Library Journal, and gCaptain Booklist Editors’ Choice (History) Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence In this “cri de coeur about the Gulf’s environmental ruin” (New York Times), “Davis has written a beautiful homage to a neglected sea” (front page, New York Times Book Review). Hailed as a “nonfiction epic . . . in the tradition of Jared Diamond’s best-seller Collapse, and Simon Winchester’s Atlantic” (Dallas Morning News), Jack E. Davis’s The Gulf is “by turns informative, lyrical, inspiring and chilling for anyone who cares about the future of ‘America’s Sea’ ” (Wall Street Journal). Illuminating America’s political and economic relationship with the environment from the age of the conquistadors to the present, Davis demonstrates how the Gulf’s fruitful ecosystems and exceptional beauty empowered a growing nation. Filled with vivid, untold stories from the sportfish that launched Gulfside vacationing to Hollywood’s role in the country’s first offshore oil wells, this “vast and welltold story shows how we made the Gulf . . . [into] a ‘national sacrifice zone’ ” (Bill McKibben). The first and only study of its kind, The Gulf offers “a unique and illuminating history of the American Southern coast and sea as it should be written” (Edward O. Wilson).

This book offers insight into the motives behind Moscow’s behaviour in the Persian Gulf (with a specific focus on the GCC member states and Iran), considering Russia’s growing role in the Middle East and its desire to protect national interests using a wide range of means. The book explores the drivers and motivations of the Russian foreign policy in the Gulf region, thus, helping the audience to generate informed prognosis about Moscow’s moves in this area over the next years. In contrast to most studies of Russia’s presence in the region, this book considers the Russian involvement in the Gulf from two standpoints – the Russian and foreign. The idea of the book is to take several key problems of Moscow’s presence in the Gulf, each of these to be covered by two authors—Russian and non-Russian scholars, in order to offer the readers alternative visions of Moscow’s policies towards Iran and the GCC countries

"Using a plethora of previously unexamined documents from a number of archives, this work provides the first clear understanding of William Augustus Bowles and his exploits along the Spanish Gulf Coast and among the Creek Indians, demonstrating unequivocally that the glory-seeking adventurer was not the tragic heroic figure that he and previous historians have claimed."--F. Todd Smith, University of North Texas War on the Gulf Coast is one of the first books about the Spanish period in West Florida (1797-1805) written from the Spanish point of view. Using Spanish archival sources, Gilbert Din is able to shed new light on the machinations of William Augustus Bowles, an adventurer who sought to introduce goods, subvert the Creek Indians, and deprive the Spaniards of territory. By revealing the inner workings of the Spanish military establishment, Din makes a convincing case that West Florida--which then stretched all the way to the Mississippi River--was a vital zone of international intrigue, not an unimportant backwater. He also offers a much-needed corrective to previous depictions of Bowles, questioning his actual influence among the Creek Nation. Din highlights the naval efforts to curtail smuggling and capture Bowles and counters prevailing wisdom about why the Spanish were forced to surrender at Fort San Marcos. Gilbert C. Din is professor emeritus of history at Fort Lewis College (Colorado). He is the author of Spaniards, Planters, and Slaves: The Spanish Regulation of Slavery in Louisiana, 1763-1803, which won the General L. Kemper and Leila Williams Award for the best book on Louisiana history.

One of Foreign Policy's Best Five Books of 2013, chosen by Marc Lynch of The Middle East Channel Beginning with the 2003 invasion of Iraq and concluding with the aftermath of the 2011 Arab uprisings, Frederic M. Wehrey investigates the roots of the Shi'a-Sunni divide now dominating the Persian Gulf's political landscape. Focusing on three Gulf states affected most by sectarian tensions—Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait—Wehrey identifies the factors that have exacerbated or tempered sectarianism, including domestic political institutions, the media, clerical establishments, and the contagion effect of external regional events, such as the Iraq war, the 2006 Lebanon conflict, the Arab uprisings, and Syria's civil war. In addition to his analysis, Wehrey builds a historical narrative of Shi'a activism in the Arab Gulf since 2003, linking regional events to the development of local Shi'a strategies and attitudes toward citizenship, political reform, and transnational identity. He finds that, while the Gulf Shi'a were inspired by their coreligionists in Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon, they ultimately pursued greater rights through a nonsectarian, nationalist approach. He also discovers that sectarianism in the region has largely been the product of the institutional weaknesses of Gulf states, leading to excessive alarm by entrenched Sunni elites and calculated attempts by regimes to discredit Shi'a political actors as proxies for Iran, Iraq, or Lebanese Hizballah. Wehrey conducts interviews with nearly every major Shi'a leader, opinion shaper, and activist in the Gulf Arab states, as well as prominent Sunni voices, and consults diverse Arabic-language sources.

Leaders in War present unique first-person perspectives across the spectrum of American combat operations during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. From division commanders to platoon leaders, the authors deliver an insider's view of tough leadership challenges, tragic failures, and triumphant victories. Leaders in War captures the essence of the post-Cold War US Army: how an all-volunteer army, equipped with new weapons systems and adjusting to new battle doctrine, mounted one of history's most successful military campaigns. Described here are the details of the tremendous logistical challenges, innovations in intelligence, ground combat operations from platoon to division, and a wide range of combat support operations. Leaders in War focuses not just on the successes, but on the failures as well, in operations ranging from violent tank battles against the vaunted Iraqi Republican Guard to train-and-fill operations thousands of miles away. Leaders in War illustrates how US Army leaders adapted to the psychological strains of combat, the fog of war, unforeseeable challenges, and the fury of tank warfare during the Persian Gulf War.

Research completed January 1993.