The Political Commodity: Oil and US–Middle East Relations in the Historiography of Abdulrahman Munif

This article explores Abdulrahman Munif’s nonfiction Arabic writings on American oil relations in the Middle East. It begins by outlining his historiography of the US oil presence and its periodization from the start of the 20th century to the early 1970s. It then focuses on his analysis of contemporaneous developments during the 1970s, a period which he saw as historically defining in realigning global relations. The article argues that he employs a unique historiographical approach, one that draws on Marxist, dependency theory, and Arab Nationalist influences. In particular, it embodies a form of conjunctural analysis avant la lettre, which pivots around analyzing the condensation of social forces at periods of critical crises at the international, national, and subnational levels. In this manner, Munif aimed to historicize the 1970s conjuncture from within, anticipating and critiquing much of what later became the standard narratives of the international relations of oil.