Oil and Labor in the Middle East
Saudi Arabia and the Oil Boom

Title and publisher notwithstanding, this is not another dry account about labor patterns in the Persian Gulf, but a well-written, insightful, first-hand account of expatriate life in Saudi Arabia. Perhaps most valuable are the detailed descriptions of many phenomena that would otherwise go unrecorded: a productivity index of the principal nationalities employed in Saudi Arabia (Americans at the top with a 1, followed by Europeans at 1.25, Indonesians at 2, and ending up with Indians and Sri Lankans at 4); a look inside the startling workings of a Saudi firm; a tour d'horizon of foreigners' living conditions; and a telling contrast between the Third World natives' family-oriented motives for working in Saudi Arabia and the Westerners' rather more egoistical goals.