Historiography in Saudi Arabia

Jorg Matthias Determann is Assistant Professor of History at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar. He was previously Postdoctoral Fellow at the Zentrum Moderner Orient and the Berlin Graduate School of Muslim Cultures and Societies, Freie Universitat Berlin, and holds a PhD in History from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. In 2013, he was one of the two joint winners of the BRISMES Leigh Douglas Memorial Prize for the best PhD dissertation on a Middle Eastern topic.

• List of FiguresList of Abbreviations and GlossaryAcknowledgmentsNote on Transliteration, Translation and ReferencesDramatis PersonaeIntroductionChapter 1: Histories of a Muslim Arab Dynasty, Early Beginnings to 1960sChapter 2: Particularistic Local Histories, 1920s to 1970sChapter 3: The Saudization of Dynastic Historiography, 1960s to PresentChapter 4: Asserting Towns, Tribes and the Shiites in National History, 1970s to PresentChapter 5: Social and Economic Histories, 1970s to PresentConclusionNotes BibilographyIndex

'[This book] puts forward a clear argument, namely that with the consolidation and expanssion of the Saudi state, the official historical narrative changed and, additionally, a certainpluralism of historical perspectives developed which Deterann terms "narrative plurality"... Determann's book is clearly written and well-argued. It is based on an impresssibely wide reading and many many interview, the author's long experience in and with the Kingdom here clearly pays off.' Professor Ulrike Freitag, Zentru Moderner Orient and Freie Universitat Berlin 'Matthias Determannn has written a clearly presented, well-organised and convincingly artivularted book on the changing landscape of historiography in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia...This is a remarkably lucid, cogently asssembled, and perhaps above all impressibely documented study(both in the vey larde primary literature consulted and also in the number of interviews carried out) that makes a major contribution not only ot its particular field of Saudi, and mroe broadly contemporary Arabic, historiography, but through its historiographical lens also privdes an unusually nuanced reading of Saudi politics, society and culture.' Dr James McDougall. Faculty of History, University of Oxford; 'Determann has produced a well-researched and useful study of the major historiographical trends in Saudi Arabia...his work contributes significantly to our understanding of the complexity of documenting the history of Wahhabism, the Saudi state, and the shifts that occurred in the ideas and practices of historians and the state.' Malek Abisaab, American Historical Review