MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman Kindle Edition

The author clearly got to know Saudi Arabia very well during his years visiting and reporting on the country. The book is thoroughly researched, with loads of primary source information from the relationships he formed over time as well as background and history about the kingdom and royal family.When I picked it up I was curious about MBS because of his sudden appearance on the scene a few years ago and the big changes he's making in the country, and of course the bone saw business. But I worried a little that a full book on him could get dry or veer into technicalities about Saudi royalty and I'd get lost.I didn't find it that way at all, the pacing is good and gives relevant historical information to bring context to current events. Even with heavy subject matter the author brings some levity by weaving in details that range from the surprisingly relatable to silly, like the vision of a somber cleric sitting in an American IHOP, or the rejection of a street plan for a new city because 2030 will have all the flying cars.It's an important work, as the subject will have such an impact on Middle Eastern (and thus global) politics for decades to come, so I'm glad it was also fun to read. Definitely pick it up!

My first thought, upon seeing this biography, was “what’s the point in writing a biography of a dude in his 30’s? Then, the more I thought about who MBS is, and all the events that have circled around this dude, the more I realized that there might be a huge point, and it might be very worth reading… so I bought it.And I couldn’t put it down.I couldn’t stop thinking about it.It is that good.Now, first you have to understand that Hubbard has had one hell of a task ahead of him. The Saudi government is essentially locked down. They have complete control over the flow of information, and MBS is at the helm of all of that. There are things known about him, but usually what is known is what people have let slip anonymously, or what someone like Hubbard, who has a boatload of experience in the realm, can understand and read into complex situations.This book tells the evolution and PR campaign of a nation, with MBS at its core, rather than a book about MBS with all this other stuff floating around him. I think MBS himself is more like the glue that holds it all together, and so much of this gets traced back to him. This is a pretty good way to attack a book in general, because MBS doesn’t have a whole lot of personal life that is known enough to talk about.Saudi Arabia is sort of going through a reinvention right now, with MBS the visionary (sort of?) at the helm of this ship, charting its new course. There is a whole lot of cultural flux going on, and there’s blowback by both conservative factions and liberal. A lot of this is covered, exploring these issues from both conservative and more liberal Saudis. With Hubbard’s experience in the realm and his knowledge of language and culture, I felt like he did a very good job at showing me not a Westerner’s view of how these things are happening, but a Saudi’s view of all this change, through interviews done with prominent clarics, and just people he runs across at events.MBS is a young man. He’s got young ideals. He was a sort of far-flung member of the Saudi royal family, and it has been through a boggling amount of events, both natural and manipulated (natural deaths of uncles and etc, for example, and his withholding diabetes medication from MBN, who was the crown prince, until he forcefully abdicated his position) that he moved up to the position he is in today, and a whole lot has happened in his rise. A whole lot that has played a big role in international politics, like the war in Yemin, women driving, entertainment being allowed back in the country, a sort of defanging of the religious police, the kidnapping of the PM of Lebanon, and, of course, the death of Jamal Khashoggi.This is all covered, and I was honestly surprised by just how much all of these big events have MBS as a control piece. With his father, King Salman in failing health, MBS has been both the first and second power broker in Saudi Arabia for quite some time. He is a man who has a certain vision for his country, but often the means he uses to attain that vision left me feeling like he had an unrealistic vision of the world, or maybe he’s just got a very loose grasp on reality? I don’t exactly know, but sometimes the divide between “I think journalists should report on what is happening in Saudi Arabia” and “So I’m going to murder Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey and have his body chopped into pieces by 15 people who did a really bad job at hiding their identities, who are also directly tied to my personal house” was… something to behold. I guess the lines connecting the end goal to the actions to attain those end goals might only be obvious to him, but to me it was just surreal with how disjointed his stated desires and actual actions often felt.For example, he locked up all these powerful business owners, power brokers, and political influencers, as well as family members in the Ritz Carlton Hotel, forcing them to sign over vast swaths of their wealth, sometimes torturing them (One person reportedly died in custody, others claimed they were electrocuted, there were reports of sleep deprivation and etc). The aim of this particular game was to “cut down on corruption” and to be clear, there is a lot of corruption in Saudi Arabia. A good chunk of the populous cheered about this, because corruption is a big deal, and it’s all over, and a problem. Yay, finally someone is taking care of the problem.But.MBS, since his rise to power, has accumulated a boatload of money, and he hasn’t accounted for how he got any of it. He bought “the most expensive house in the world” which is located in France. According to my Google searches, I don’t think the guy has ever set foot in the place. He bought a yacht for half a billion dollars. He threw down something like $400 million on a Leonardo da Vinci piece, which is the most any private buyer has ever spent on art, ever. He rented a private island and threw a big party there, bringing in all sorts of performers, prostitutes, and cocaine. I mean, the guy is LOADED. And this kind of shows the dysfunction that I think this book highlighted the most. The end justifies the means, maybe, in his eyes. And the means are often brutal, horrible, and ill-planned. He’s had one PR nightmare after another, and he’s killed and arrested, brutally silenced a ton of people.On the other hand, women can drive now, and Saudi Arabia is bringing some “government approved” entertainment back, so yay?I think, maybe I’m left with this impression. He’s brutally consolidating his wealth and power, and he’s using “let’s modernize our country and make it a fun place to live again” as the curtain he’s operating behind.The writing in this book was fantastic. There really wasn’t a slow moment throughout the piece. Everything connects to everything else. Once the ball starts rolling, it really just picks up pace until the explosive ending. Hubbard has a great way with building a bridge between Saudi Arabia, a culture not many of us understand, and the wider Western world. He doesn’t state his opinions on what is happening, but it is hard not to hear is disquiet, his disapproval, his worry over how a lot of these things are going to play out. Mostly, I found it fascinating to see how Saudi Arabia has a huge role in not just the Middle East, but the wider world, and why the US is so connected with them– something I didn’t quite grok until I read this book. With someone as unpredictable and often just stupid (and, let’s face it, BRUTAL and CRIMINAL can fit in here, as well) about actions as MBS, there is real concern with how all of this will play out.It’s a book that left me torn down the middle. On the one hand, I really do genuinely hope that a lot of these social reforms pan out the way people over there want them to. Progress is important, and I think Saudi Arabia is due for a good dose of it. On the other hand, MBS has complete and absolute control over this nation and the people in it. He is silencing journalists, putting family members on house arrest, torturing people, and starting huge regional wars. He is dangerous, and unpredictable, and seems to not be nearly as smart as he thinks he is, so I’m not exactly sure where this will all end up, but it is worth watching.This book is a must read for anyone with any interest at all in this sort of thing.

I admit that I am generally ignorant about things Saudi Arabian, but this book is a highly readable portrait of MBS. It is revealing and disturbing, for it demonstrates that MBS, despite his stated objective of bringing his country into the 21st Century, is an authoritarian thug who will stop at nothing to protect what he sees as his self-interest. And when I say "nothing," I mean just that - up to and including kidnapping, torture, and murder. I started reading this assuming that the imprisonment of his fellow princes at the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton and the murder of Jamal Khasoggi were as bad as it got, but those are only some (OK, the worst, but still just some) of his misdeeds. Even if this is only half the story, it's a pretty scary half.A riveting read that I couldn't put down, albeit for all the wrong reasons.

This is the first in a series of anticipated books on the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Salman (MBS). Ben Hubbard has set a high standard for investigative journalism. What stands out in this exceptional book is the vast amount of research that Hubbard has undertaken. Those interested in the upbringing and background to one of the Arab world’s most powerful, mercurial and notorious political leaders will benefit from this book. However, there are many others reasons for reading it. Arguably, the most important being the details on the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, whose name will be forever associated with MBS. A powerful and penetrating read that is worth your time.

I've been traveling regularly to Saudi Arabia over the past 10 years and this book provides an unbiased insight into life within the Kingdom today under MBS. It shows both the tremendous progress that's been happening (even before MBS) as well as the new harsh reality activists and anyone who does something that might anger MBS has to face. This book provides the nuances of life under a complex ruler and country with a bizarre history of an extremist religious right partnered with a modern royal family. The author hits all the key points and this book is an important read for anyone interested in the future of the Middle East.

We have followed Hubbard's reports on Saudi Arabia in the NYT, impressed by his insider view of the country's culture and entranced by his reporting on its unvisited ancient sites. Immediately ordered his book on MBS! It's remarkably clear and accessible; Hubbard's vast range of sources are detailed in the notes, but integrated smoothly into his narrative. Makes recent Middle Eastern history intelligible for the outsider, pulling recent events and reports into a coherent, but never facile, whole. Painlessly educates the reader from a fair-minded worldview, grounded in the values of just government and free journalism.

The overall story is fascinating. A lot of it is truly terrifying. But the writer seems incapable of taking himself out of it. The stories and machinations are interesting. That Mr. Hubbard saw them, and how, and what he thought, and his specific visas when he saw them is...less so.It's also deeply unfocused. It suffers from a very American journalism lack of focus; the reader gets the impression that it is an extremely rough draft. It reads like an essay stretched far past its natural length. Or maybe he just needed to make several essays about it. Either way.He also suffers from a common delusion, that regular people were as fascinated and repulsed by the Khashoggi affair as journalists were. Khashoggi simply wasn't interesting enough, dead or alive, to warrant so much space in the book. Just because they liked him at parties, doesn't mean it's going to outrage ordinary people like, say, destroying Yemen.(And, frankly, Khashoggi could've saved his own skin by keeping his mickey zipped. Maybe it's boredom and resentment on my part at how much space he took up, but he came across as a boring and pettily thoughtless man.)There are good points, but this is an amazing premise, wasted. I found myself longing to see more of some paths that Hubbard glanced at, rather than what he himself thought - and, of course, Khashoggi. For instance, he makes it clear that, for all of MBS probably sincere nationalism, the Kingdom is being circled by international finance. MBS idolizes Thatcher (!?) It's going to lead to some very predictable ends; if it's anything like the West, the economic forces that destroy family formation are going to be blamed on the social liberalization.The basic, useful information, you could always have gotten from Wikipedia. The insights from within the Kingdom are frustratingly poorly fleshed out, and the author can't keep himself put of it. What feels like 1/3 of the book is dedicated to Khashoggi's deeply banal texts.There is a fascinating book to be written about this topic. This is not it.

An authoritative account which gives a clear picture of what was behind the news stories that appeared during the stunningly successful rise of MBS, while also giving an interesting account of how a top international journalist goes about his business in search of stories. The result is an enjoyable concoction of huge money, huge power and murder that would stretch the credibility in an airport novel but rings terrifying true.

This reads more like a trashy biography than a great work of Middle East modern history. (Though, maybe that was what was intended?). And I found myself comparing it to a Piers Morgan diary. However, the writer clearly had none of the same access direct to his subject matter. And that probably explains the bizarre level of focus on his few sources (eg large tracts of Kashoggi's text messages). I also often found myself wondering whether the book was about MbS or other people and events (Kashoggi, for example). And, overall, it didn't hang together brilliantly as a narrative.THAT SAID, if (like me) you don't have much capacity to get into a great work of history (as much as you might like the idea of it) and you like easy-to-read, trashy gossip, then it's a great read! And I have every reason to believe (from other things I've read and my time spent in Saudi) that it's probably pretty near the truth.

This book is a mean cheat to earn some money using current world popularity of the Crown prince. To audience: Book title that does not correspond to the story inside. To the author: If you would like to repeat for a 1000 time the story of a journalist, who was killed, you should have named the book accordingly. It would be interesting statistics to see how many copies would have been sold if the cover and the title matched the content. It's a shame on one hand, if you value your reputation as a writer at all. On the other hand, being dishonest about what the book is really about, tell us enough about the "credibility" of all the material inside. Even the few photos (of bad quality) inside are selected in a distasteful and irrelevant way, and show people with no direct connection to MBS. Trees cut to waste. Goes directly to garbage. Will keep the cover only. And will file a Refund case for sure.

Really enjoyed this portrait of one of wealthiest and most autocratic leaders in the Arab world. Despite a promising start eg Saudi women allowed to drive and in doing so marginalised the hard line clerics- this book paints a picture of a ruler who detains tens of his own family who are not “on message” or who are critical of him personally. Might explain why he hit it off with Trump! Promising start to modernising Saudi and inviting foreign business to help, but killing of Kashoggi remains an indication of his darker side. Fascinating read