Saudi, Inc.

The Saudi Royal family and Aramco leadership are, and almost always have been, motivated by ambitions of long-term strength and profit. They use Islamic laws, Wahhabi ideology, gender discrimination, and public beheadings to maintain stability and their own power. Underneath thethobesandabayasand behind the religious fanaticism and illiberalism lies a most sophisticated and ruthless enterprise.Today, that enterprise is poised to pull off the biggest IPO in history. Over more than a century, fed by ambition and oil wealth,al Saudhas come from nothing to rule as absolute monarchs, a contrast with the world around them and modernity itself. The story starts with Saudi Arabia's founder, Abdul Aziz, a lonely refugee embarking on a daring gambit to reconquer his family's ancestral home-the mud-walled city of Riyadh. It takes readers almost to present day, when the multinational family business has madeal Saudthe wealthiest family in the world and on the cusp of a new transformation. Nowal Saudand its family business, Aramco, are embarking on their most ambitious move: taking the company public.