Dr. Toby Jones, Rutgers University
August 28, 2016 

Saudi Arabia and Iran have emerged as the Middle East’s most powerful countries. Driven partly by mutual enmity and partly by suspicion, Riyadh and Tehran have increasingly sought to contain and confront one another on battlegrounds across the region, from Yemen to Syria. What drives Saudi Arabia’s fears about Iran? How is the kingdom pursuing its interests and at what cost?

Dr. Toby Jones is a historian of the modern Middle East.  Jones’s scholarship focuses primarily on the political history of the Persian Gulf. He is associate professor of history at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. He teaches courses on global environmental history, energy, and the modern Middle East. In 2015 Jones was recognized as a Rutgers Chancellor’s Scholar for distinguished scholarship. Jones is author of Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia (Harvard University Press, 2010). His latest book is Running Dry: Essays on Energy and Environmental Crisis (Rutgers University Press, 2015). He is currently working on a new book project The Long War: Oil, Insecurity, and American in the Middle East also to be published by Harvard University Press.

Supported by New Mexico Humanities Council, Sandia National Labs and Haverland Carter Lifestyle Group