Connoisseurs of improbable history will forever appreciate Oman in 1970. That is when the 59-year-old sultan of the world’s most insular and backward-looking government, Sa‘id bin Taimur, found himself deposed by his 29-year-old son, Qaboos, who turned out to be a relentless modernizer throughout his half-century reign.
Peterson’s understated description of that palace coup d’état includes such memorable passages as: on the day of the event, Sa‘id spent “his afternoon counting his money”; confronted by Qaboos’s demand that he sign a letter of abdication, Sa‘id “grabbed a pistol and started firing,” killing one person and wounding another; after this, Sa‘id “barricaded himself in his bedroom”; a British military ally of Qaboos, Edward Turnill, used a megaphone to call on Sa‘id and two slaves to surrender, “but the only answer was several bursts of automatic fire”; Turnill ordered his troops to storm the sultan’s bedroom; after an exchange of gunfire, Sa‘id’s “voice was heard from inside the bedroom, shouting that he had shot himself. Turnill persuaded the sultan to open the door. When he entered alone and unarmed, the sultan was behind his desk holding two pistols. Turnill asked him to hand them over and Sultan Sa‘id did so, saying ‘I don’t think I will need these any more’.”
Peterson then goes on, in great depth and with many more fascinating details, to trace “Oman’s transformation after 1970” and, more specifically, “to describe and analyze the various strands woven together in the creation of the modernizing state.” Accordingly, he focuses on the first fifteen years of that period when “the haphazard cobbling together of an unprecedented political system, an entirely new government administration, and an uncharted economic transformation produced the basis for the 50-year governance of Sultan Qaboos’s reign and beyond.”
The book benefits from its author’s deep familiarity with Oman, long stretches of residence there, and many prior writings on it. Peterson’s extensive knowledge of the country means that Oman’s Transformation After 1970 not only offers a well-rounded analysis but also preserves important historical information otherwise likely to be lost.
Daniel Pipes
Founder, Middle East Forum
