The Gulf Cooperation Council: Search for Unity in a Dynamic Region; The Gulf Cooperation Council: Record and Analysis

If there has been a gap in our knowledge of the GCC, these two books now fill it. Perhaps because the organization has made unexpected progress and is still relatively little known, both have a tendency to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. Peterson's work is the more elaborate and comprehensive, systematically covering the historical background, efforts at political and economic integration, and the security problems of these rich but weak states trying to cope with regional war and superpower rivalry. The Ramazani volume presents the essential information schematically, with sound comment by the author, and includes a rich collection of documents.