Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States Today: An Encyclopedia of Life in the Arab States Available to Purchase

The Arabian peninsular played a very small part in the history of the ancient world. Most of it is too arid to support much in the way of life. In spite of having such a large land mass it has no permanent sources of surface water – no lakes, no streams, and no year‐round springs. Kuwait is unique in being the only independent nation‐state in the world to have no source of fresh water – throughout history its water supply has had to be imported, or, more recently, desalinized. Much of ancient European and Asian history centred round the see‐sawing...