Gone with the Shamal: Growing Up in the Oil Company Compound of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in the 1940s and 1950s

The author takes us on a sentimental and humorous journey into a time and place impossible to be known or seen again. He grew up in the oil fields, deserts, and the American compound at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in the 1940s and 1950s, long before the fabulous petroleum wealth under the sands dramatically transformed that nation. Arabia, then, was a country filled with disease and destitution, populated only by small bands of desert nomads and impoverished, illiterate villagers. With affection...