This comprehensive history of Saudi Arabia provides coverage of its emergence in 1745 through to the 1990s. It presents the evolution of the social and political structures of Saudi society, the Wahhabi movement (Muwahhidun – believers in one God) for a reform of Islam, the impact of the “oil factor”, and Saudi Arabia’s place in the modern world. The book is based on: Arab texts, including many original Arab chronicles, by both protagonists and antagonists of the Saudi dynasty and the Wahhabis; accounts by European travellers, diplomats, scholars and intelligence officers from the 18th to the 20th centuries; the documents and publications of the British administration in India; 20th-century Arabic sources, including official Saudi publications and also accounts by participants in the formative events described; works by prominent East European academics that have previously been unavailable in English; US publications; and Russian sources, including material from the Russian archives.