Kuwait has been inhabited for millennia, but began to emerge as an Arab shaikhdom relatively late, after the arrival of the `Utub clans of central Arabia during the first decades of the 18th century. Entering the historical record first as a junction of caravan and sea routes, it quickly grew to be a commercial rival to Basra at the head of the Gulf. --

Since the discovery of the worlds third largest oil reserves within its borders, Kuwait has achieved international political prominence far exceeding its physical size. The country had already played a role in history before, however. Local sources take that history back to the beginning of the nineteenth century. The present book takes the history of Kuwait still further back using European sources. It includes analyses and comparisons of indications on maps from the sixteenth century onwards and of references to the Kuwait area in documents produced by officials of the Dutch East India Company-the principal Western political and economic power in the Gulf during most of early modern times-, in British documents and in early travel accounts. The book is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the political position of Kuwait in history vis-a-vis its neighbours, especially the Ottoman authorities in Basra.

Situated at the edge of the Persian Gulf, this small and oil-rich country only became an independent nation in 1961. The whole of Kuwait is covered by a dry and undulating desert, which leads to the wealthy chalets and beach houses on the coast. The Kuwaiti people lived through the Gulf War in 1991, but since then they have experienced peace and prosperity in the otherwise tumultuous region. Readers will learn more about the Kuwaitis, their land, and their culture in this informative book, featuring vibrant photographs and rich narratives.

Ever since Kuwait emerged in the 18th century as a young maritime state with an extreme dependence on the sea, it has been renowned for the consummate skills of its sailors and dhow-builders. Kuwait's shipwrights became justly famed for the beauty, seaworthiness and practicality of their vessels, and the Kuwaiti boum became a symbol of Kuwait's maritime prowess on all the dhow routes linking Arabia, Iran, India and East Africa. This book describes in detail how Kuwaiti shipwrights built their vessels, in particular the boum .As with dhows everywhere, this was done entirely by hand and eye, without drawings of any kind. There are chapters on celebrated master builders and famous dhows, on sails, rigging and launching, and on tools and timber. There is also an extensive glossary of Kuwaiti nautical terms. Today the era of Kuwait's sailing dhows is long gone. In The Art of Dhow-building in Kuwait Dr Ya'qub Al-Hijji, himself a Kuwaiti maritime historian, provides a timely memorial of the craft industry which sustained this unique maritime nation. It is lavishly illustrated with drawings, colour photographs and remarkable old black-and-white images.The latter, from the first half of the 20th century, include many by Alan Villiers, and form an eloquent pictorial elegy on the passing of a great maritime tradition.

The Emirate of Kuwait hardly resembles the city-State it was at the start of the 20th century. The discovery of oil in 1938 rapidly transformed the tiny tribal sheikhdom of the Al-Sabah into a modern oil-producing state where, by the early 1980s, citizens were enjoying one of the highest standards of living in the world. While much has been written on the reasons why and how the Al-Sabah became a ruling dynasty, little is known about the nature of their authority and its relationship to Kuwait's social structure. Rivka Azoulay shows how despite the rapidity of change in the oil-rich, family-run emirate, it is the pre-oil dynamics of social and political life that dictate how society operates. The author shows that Kuwait's ambitious diversification plans to reduce oil-dependence by 2035 require a renegotiation of the regime's pact with society, which threatens the pre-oil alliances upon which the Al-Sabah's regime has been built.