Drawing on both Arabic sources and British Foreign Office archive material, the author races the expansion and consolidation of the Saudi states f. . .  rom the early years of the twentieth century. This process led to a series of border disputes which the Kuwait Conference attempted, but ultimately failed, to solve. The book opens with a description of the establishment of the sultanate of Najd and its dependencies, and the incorporation of Riyadh, al-Hasa, Ha'il and Asir. This process of expansion inevitably led to a redefinition of borders and to boundary problems. Relations between Britain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Transjordan during the first world war are discussed, in particular the contacts between Sherif Hussein of Mecca and MacMahon, the British high commissioner for Egypt. The relationship of the sultanate of Najd with its neighbours is examined in the light of the positions adopted by Britain and the Ottoman Empire and as a backdrop to the Kuwait Conference. Finally, the author discusses both the preliminaries and the three stages of the Conference, analyzing the reasons for its failure. The book provides valuable background material for all those who wish to understand the present-day state of Saudi Arabia and its relations with its neighbours.   Show.