Oil Men, Territorial Ambitions and Political Agents: From Pearls to Oil in the Trucial States of the Gulf

It is doubly rewarding when a detailed account of the oil history of what was previously known as the Trucial Coast or Trucial States (and now as the United Arab Emirates) is presented by someone who has himself been a part of that history. David Heard’s painstakingly researched work, Oil Men, Territorial Ambitions and Political Agents, is less a conventional narrative of the history of the pursuit of oil in the Trucial States than a comprehensive synopsis of and comments on reports, letters, maps, and other archival materials produced by oil company executives, British government officials, and local political leaders. The author, who first arrived in Abu Dhabi in 1963 as a petroleum engineer and has lived there ever since, expertly ties the documentary record together with his own observations, anecdotes, and conclusions. He declares in his preface that “My chief aim is to make available to the people of the Emirates and to anyone else who is interested, the reports written by the first ‘oil men’ to come to the Trucial Coast, and which are contained in the company archives” (p. xix). This work is a second installment in the author’s coverage of the subject. Heard’s earlier From Pearls to Oil followed a similar format as this book but focused on an earlier period, running from the inception of the search for oil in the 1920s and 1930s until the outbreak of war in 1939. Heard also subsequently edited two compendia of reports and diaries of oil company representatives involved with the Trucial Coast. The present two-volume work concentrates on the period from 1937–1939, when concession agreements were signed with various rulers of Trucial States, until the end of 1955. The first volume consists of short passages, each with its own title, grouped in a dozen chapters, which are arranged chronologically. The author alternates snippets on Trucial States history, society, and specific locales, with short descriptions of historical events, pen portraits of key people in Abu Dhabi’s oil background, and explanations of oil exploration and drilling techniques. The strength lies in the author’s access to and reliance on the archives of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), enabling him to tell his story in exceeding detail. IPC operated locally under the name of Petroleum Development (Trucial Coast), or PD(TC) for short, which became the Abu Dhabi Petroleum Company in 1960 and then the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations in 1979. He also draws upon some academic works and especially published memoirs. Volume One also includes a short chronology and a brief bibliography of published works. There are also eight reproductions of maps, consisting of the explorer Wilfred Thesiger’s map of Abu Dhabi shaykhdom as well as company maps of Abu Dhabi, al-Buraymi, Liwa, and Dubai. There are also 22 historic photographs ranging from scenes of Abu Dhabi in the 1940s to