Desert warrior

His Royal Highness General Khaled is the first member of the House of Saud to write a book. He was Commander of Joint Forces and Theater of Operations in the Gulf War against Iraq, in a "parallel command" with the American commander, General Norman Schwarzkopf. How their association worked - and occasionally didn't work - is one of the compelling themes of these memoirs. Never before has a true insider thrown such light on decision making within the royal family, on the dangers and challenges of an often hostile Middle East environment, on the complex Saudi-American relationship, and on what it was like to grow up as a prince at a time when the desert kingdom moved from poverty to unimaginable wealth. This is the candid, uncensored autobiography of a leading Saudi prince who, after graduating from Sandhurst in Britain and from Fort Leavenworth and Maxwell Air War College in the United States, rose to command Saudi Arabia's Air Defense Forces, and then won international renown in the war against Saddam Hussein.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.