Robert Lacey is a British journalist and the author of the bestselling books i>Majesty/i> and i>Ford: The Men and the Machine/i>, among others. In 1979, he moved with his family to Saudi Arabia for eighteen months to research his book, i>The Kingdom/i>, an eye-opening and penetrating study of that country's complex and often paradoxical culture. For the past three years he has split his time between Saudi Arabia and London, gathering material for this book.