http://www.outintheblue.com

Letters from Arabia 1937-1940


"Despite extensive coverage of the Gulf War, few Americans know how the United States came to depend on the Middle East for oil. In Out in the Blue, Thomas Barger provides a fascinating glimpse of that history. ... It is an exciting narrative of desert exploration and romance set against the emerging threat of a world war."
Brenda Daly, North Dakota Quarterly, Winter 2002

In 1937, Tom Barger left North Dakota and Kathleen, his young bride of two weeks, to seek his fortune as a junior geologist in a remote desert country. Out in the Blue is the story of the people he met and the places he explored in Saudi Arabia - before there was oil.

Based on the letters he sent to Kathleen during his first three years in the Kingdom, this book is a fascinating portrait of life in early Arabia as well as a glimpse into the mind and heart of a man who retired thirty-two years later as the President and CEO of Aramco - the largest independent oil producing company in the world.

"This wonderfully poignant, warm and informative story about the early years of geological exploration within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a fascinating and enjoyable read about an important time in my country's history."
Shaikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, Former Minister of Petroleum
for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, January 2001

"This book offers rare insight into the work of a handful of men in a harsh hidden corner of our world. Thomas Barger may have been a geologist, but he wrote like a poet to a wife he missed and loved."
Mona Megalli, Amazon, 2000

"And here lies the best virtue of this book: there are no stereotypical Americans, no stereotypical Saudis, only real people thrust into unfamiliar circumstances and new kinds of social relations, each struggling according to his own ability to build an industry which would, in only a few short years, utterly transform the country and its way of life."
Kevin Rosser, The Journal of Energy Literature, Summer 2002

A must read for all those who love the desert, Arabia, the beginning of oil, and most of all the poignant warmth of human hearts.