The Man Who Would Be King: Mohammed Bin Salman and the Transformation of Saudi Arabia

Former Wall Street Journal publisher House (On Saudi Arabia) paints an uneven portrait of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince. The book comprises a series of thematic, at times repetitive essays that document how the sixth son of an elderly king radically changed the country in less than a decade. While briefly covering Mohammed Bin Salman’s consolidation of power, which involved trapping dozens of influential Saudis in a Ritz-Carlton, House mainly focuses on MBS’s efforts to implement his “vision of a new, modern kingdom,” including by allowing women more rights and pioneering “gigaprojects,” such as Neom, a “futuristic development the size of Massachusetts.” House’s effusive descriptions of MBS—who “doesn’t need sartorial trappings of power or regal airs because he has the real stuff”—and firsthand accounts of his development projects, including a theme park where “a visitor can’t help but be struck by the relaxed smiles of Saudis,” can be strikingly uncritical. This is especially jarring in combination with her coverage of imprisonments, disappearances, and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which she concludes was “a rendition gone wrong.” House is at her most astute when she analyzes MBS’s position as a young man at the helm of an even younger country (“Some 65 percent of Saudis are under thirty”) that is in pursuit of “big dreams.” Still, this feels like a missed opportunity. (July)