This book is not a complete account of events many years ago on the Trucial Coast: that would be impossible. My chief aim is to make available to the people of the Emirates and to anyone else who is interested, the reports written by the first ‘oil men’ to come to the Trucial Coast, and which are contained in the company archives. Other people and historians may disagree with their analysis of events, but in the absence of more documentation it is difficult to challenge their accounts or in some cases to be sure of the truth. Before we pass judgement we must consider the geographical, political, social and religious environment that prevailed on the Trucial Coast in those distant days.

Events are recorded by individuals, whether they are historians, journalists, engineers, lawyers or any other person. They write down their account of what they have seen, and often this and another person's account may be rather different. There are the published, and as yet unpublished, reports contained in the British Government archives. These were written by officials who lived in the towns of the Gulf, discussed with the sheikhs and other leading people and reported back to London. Also the reader can find in the book shops many personal descriptions of events which people have themselves published in books and articles, or have passed on in conversation.

There are the reports written by some commercial organisations and for many years the chief of these was the oil company. As in my first volume, ‚From Pearls to Oil‘, this book makes use of the archives of the London based Iraq Petroleum Company and its associated companies. The first associated company was Petroleum Concessions Limited, PCL and I have employed this name in the book ‚From Pearls to Oil‘. The IPC used this name for activities throughout the Middle East, excluding Iraq. In this book I have used the name Petroleum Development (Trucial Coast), PD(TC) the same company, but for operations only on the Trucial Coast. Later, after the discovery of oil in commercial quantities in 1960 this company operating in Abu Dhabi was named Abu Dhabi Petroleum Company. After 1979 the company was renamed Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations.

Fortunately some of the reports written by PCL/PD(TC) men working on the Trucial Coast have been preserved and I have based my narrative on these. I have quoted from them and I have included many of them in appendices to this book.