Out in the Blue: Letters from Arabia 1937-1940 book by Thomas C. Barger

Out in the Blue is Tom Barger's story of his first three years exploring the deserts of early Saudi Arabia for an embryonic oil company that had yet to discover oil. In his travels he visited ancient places that have now all but disappeared and met Bedouin living a pre-Biblical nomadic life that was soon to irrevocably change in the face of modernization. Told through the letters he wrote home to his young bride of only two weeks before he left for the Kingdom, Out in the Blue is the story of Saudi Arabia before there was oil.