This study of fundamental aspects of the oil decade examines the influence of oil production, export and revenues on domestic, regional and international relations. It highlights the expansion of higher education in the Arab world, and the increase in demand for industrial and consumer goods.

The sudden, huge price hikes in Middle Eastern oil in late 1973 yielded, almost overnight, an enormous flow of resources to states and societies that could not have anticipated such instant affluence. With this came unprecedented political power because of the control the oil states were able to maintain over oil production and prices until the second half of 1982. Thus, though covering barely nine years, the period may appropriately be dubbed the "Oil Decade". In this study of fundamental aspects of the oil decade, Gad G. Gilbar first examines the influence the production, export and revenues of oil exerted on domestic, regional and international relations. This is followed by an in-depth analysis of the expansion of higher education, no doubt the single most significant social change the oil decade engendered. Throughout the Arab world many new universities began opening their doors to an ever-increasing number of students, especially in the sciences and civil engineering. Significant also was the proportion of women students enrolling. Finally, the author traces how, as of the early 1970s, the official Arab boycott on goods manufactured in Israel was increasingly being circumvented, and a wide range of agricultural and industrial products were beginning to find their way to customers in Arab states.

Demographic developments have had a crucial bearing on the economic, social and political situation in a number of Middle Eastern countries. Two societies in particular, the Palestinian and the Egyptian, have seen the weft and warp of their fabric significantly affected by natural increase and migration. The author shows how the recession that struck the Arab oil economies in the early 1980s, by slowing down the migratory movement, shut off the valve that had afforded the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza relief from economic pressures. He also analyzes how Jordan, in coping with the resulting demographic and economic pressures, adopted an antinatalist policy despite powerful political and social forces working against such a programme.

This study first offers a general outline of Palestinian population growth between 1948 and 1987, and then focuses on the town of Nablus in the early 1950s for a detailed analysis of the economic forces that instigated Palestinian migration to Jordan and the Gulf. The author shows how the recession that struck the Arab oil economies in the early 1980s, by slowing down the migratory movement, shut off the valve that had afforded the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza relief from economic pressures. When during those same years the Israeli government instigated a policy of reducing investments in these territories, the Palestinians found themselves in a no-win situation, with their economic plight forming one of the main factors for the eruption of the Intifada in December 1987. Finally, following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in July 1990, most of the 300,000 or so Palestinians who had been working there left (or were forced to leave) and made their way to Jordan. The author analyses how Jordan, in coping with the resulting demographic and economic pressures, adopted an antinatalist policy despite powerful political and social forces working against such a programme.