Nobody Expects the Saudi Islamism!

THE FRENCH POLITICAL scientist Stéphane Lacroix begins this recently translated book with the assertion that â??Saudi Arabia has remained a persistent blind spot in studies of Islamism.â? He could have gone even further. During the fifty years prior to September 11, scholars largely neglected the entire history of modern Saudi Arabia. In the mid-twentieth century, Western social scientists were convinced that Middle Eastern societies would follow the path blazed by Europe and the United States toward the inevitable end of secular, nationalist republics.