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The focus and context of the great powers' interest in the Persian Gulf has altered —often subtly, sometimes dramatically —since Britain established its hegemony in the region in the 19th century. Britain engaged in a lucrative trade, but primarily sought to protect imperial communications and the approaches to India. Today, it is oil that gives the region its strategic importance. For a number of years after World War II, Britain remained the paramount power in the area, maintaining maritime peace, handling the external affairs of the Gulf sheikhdoms, mediating local disputes, dominating trade. Since Britain's withdrawal from the Gulf in 1971, the situation has become somewhat more messy.
1 See, for example, Looney, Robert E., Saudi Arabia's Develop/merit Potential: Application of an Islamic Growth Model (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1982)Google Scholar; El Mallakh, Ragaei and El Mallakh, Dorothea H., eds., Saudi Arabia: Energy, Developmental Planning, and Industrialization (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1982)Google Scholar; El Mallakh, Ragaei, Saudi Arabia: Rush to Development (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982)Google Scholar; El Mallakh, Ragaei and Atta, Jacob K., The Absorptive Capacity of Kuwait: Domestic and International Perspectives (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1981).Google Scholar These books provide a wealth of statistics and information on development plans, industrial projects, laws regulating foreign investment and the like, and point to some of the problems of development faced by countries rich in funds but lacking in expertise, manpower, and infrastructure. But for the most part they project, in each case, the relevant government's own vision of its economic plans and activities. Although full of facts, they fall somewhat short on analysis.
2 Hewett, Edward A., Energy, Economics, and Foreign Policy in the Soviet Union (Washngton, DC: Brookings Institution, 1984).Google Scholar
