This, the second volume of JB Kelly's essays and reviews, covers the oil crisis of the 1970's -a period which first alerted the Western world not only to the deep-seated animosity and contempt with which it is held by the Arab world, but also the duplicity and double-dealing in which Arabs, especially the Saudis, routinely engage when dealing with Western leaders. America's feeble response during this challenge undoubtedly confirmed in the minds of Arab leaders that the Western world is essentially weak and can easily be manipulated. As JBK pointed out, there were 'substantial grounds for...

The resurgence of Islam is a constant theme in the writings of J.B. Kelly from the 1980s to his death in 2009, and it is appropriate, therefore, that it should be reflected in the title of this third, and final, volume of his collected essays and reviews. It was, in fact, originally a phrase which he gave to a lecture he delivered to the Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C. in 1980. The title captures the surreal, Alice-in-Wonderland, nature of Middle Eastern politics. He intended that the lecture, given to promote his new book on Arabia, the Gulf and the West (Weidenfeld & Nicolson/Basic...