Introduction

Since 1973 the oil-producing countries of the Arab world seem constantly to have reached the headlines in the world’s press for reasons varying from oil price rises and conservation measures to large-scale operations in financial or real estate markets. Much of this publicity has been achieved against these countries’ will, and the reactions which were generated would have been far more rational had more attention been paid previously to the changes in the world order which had helped to bring them about: changes of which the events commencing in 1973 were but a consequence. The changes to which we refer were not isolated and unrelated, but were a part of the whole process of transformation of the relationships, both political and economic, which previously existed between the oil-producing countries and those companies and countries which controlled the extraction and marketing of their oil resources. This process had commenced a decade or more before 1973, yet much of it seems to have passed unnoticed by the world at large and little, if any, recognition was accorded it as the vehicle of more profound changes in the world economic order such as those of 1973 onward, many of which we must now admit should have been obvious.