Newsbreaking and controversial -- an award-winning investigative journalist uncovers the thirty-year relationship between the Bush family and the House of Saud and explains its impact on American foreign policy, business, and national security. House of Bush, House of Saud begins with a politically explosive question: How is it that two days after 9/11, when U.S. air traffic was tightly restricted, 140 Saudis, many immediate kin to Osama Bin Laden, were permitted to leave the country without being questioned by U.S. intelligence? The answer lies in a hidden relationship that began in the 1970s, when the oil-rich House of Saud began courting American politicians in a bid for military protection, influence, and investment opportunity. With the Bush family, the Saudis hit a gusher -- direct access to presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. To trace the amazing weave of Saud- Bush connections, Unger interviewed three former directors of the CIA, top Saudi and Israeli intelligence officials, and more than one hundred other sources. His access to major players is unparalleled and often exclusive -- including executives at the Carlyle Group, the giant investment firm where the House of Bush and the House of Saud each has a major stake. Like Bob Woodward's The Veil, Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud features unprecedented reportage; like Michael Moore's Dude, Where's My Country? Unger's book offers a political counter-narrative to official explanations; this deeply sourced account has already been cited by Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer, and sets 9/11, the two Gulf Wars, and the ongoing Middle East crisis in a new context: What really happened when America's most powerful political family became seduced by its Saudi counterparts?

The rise and rule of the most powerful dynasty in the Arab world.

In the evolutionary process of Saudi Arabia, the period beginning with the seventies marked by the 'oil revolution' can be described as the turning point. With this began a phase of consolidation and institutionalisation of the royal government. One important development having bearing on its nation building project has been the participation of the Royal Family members in economic activities of the country. Since the seventies, over the last three decades, it is clearly visible that the engagement of the Saudi Royal Family in economy and business has grown not only in volume but in form also. This study has attemped to look at the sprawling business activities of the Royal Family members, not merely as a profile but relate it to the evolutionary context. The first major study that examines the gradual process of emerging entrepreneurship in the Saudi Royal Family. It highlights the role of the royal entrepreneurs in the development of the Saudi private sector. The study shows that their investments have created a positive climate for the growth of entrepreneurship, especially productive entrepreneurship, on the Saudi business scene. An indispensable store-house of detailed account of the investments made by more that 600 royal members, including princesses in 1050 Saudi companies. Supported with 28 pages of index and 14 tables, this data-packed book is a bonanza for businessmen, diplomats, laymen, and all those interested in Saudi Arabia and its Royal Family. A must-have book that contains biographical and kinship details of the Aal Saud. The book is one of its kind and is fully based on firsthand local sources. Apart from numerous published sources in Arabic, the official gazette of the government of Saudi Arabis, Umm Al-Qura, has been extensively consulted.

The explosive story of the dynasty whose greed and corruption have brought Saudi Arabia to the very brink of bankruptcy - a dynasty now on the verge of collapse

Saudi Arabia faces a time of uncertainty. The life its rulers once enjoyed from the sale of oil is now threatened by newly emerging reserves from Iran and the United States. Saudi Arabia’s aged, ailing monarch has defied decades of custom by naming his son as next in line for the throne. Already, the future heir’s ill-conceived policies have brought trouble to the house of Al-Saud: proxy wars rage in the Middle East and foreshadow a confrontation with an increasingly powerful Iran. Meanwhile, unrest grows at home. Discontented Saudi youth grow restless from high unemployment and a repressive society. The monarchy itself arrests members of its own family without cause while the religious establishment exerts its repressive influence over society. Saudi Arabia finds itself weakening as the Middle East transforms. Within the pages of this work, one glimpses a vision of the future: the inevitable demise of Saudi Arabia.

With over thirty years of experience writing about Saudi Arabia, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and former publisher of The Wall Street Journal Karen Elliott House has an unprecedented knowledge of life inside this shrouded kingdom. Through anecdotes, observation, analysis, and extensive interviews, she navigates the maze in which Saudi citizens find themselves trapped and reveals the sometimes contradictory nature of the nation that is simultaneously a final bulwark against revolution in the Middle East and a wellspring of Islamic terrorists. Saudi Arabia finds itself threatened by fissures and forces on all sides, and On Saudi Arabia explores in depth what this portends for the country’s future—and our own.