ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the historical dimension that could serve as an important guideline in the formulation of strategies for the socio-economic development of the Gulf region. It concentrates on three periods in the twentieth-century history of the Gulf region: the pre-oil, transition to oil, and post-oil periods. These periods will be schematised. The pre-oil era covers the time span before the possibility of the existence of oil resources became known; the transition to oil era takes in the period when the preliminary oil concessions were being signed; and the post-oil era will be considered as having started when the receipts from petroleum began to accrue. It was during the pre-oil period that the Gulf region became of great strategic importance to Britain. It lay on the route to India and the oil supplies of Persia. Its geo-political nature, therefore, became a resource with negative assets for the people of the region, since it led to British domination.
