Cover Page -- Halftitle Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Map -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- 1. Route-making -- Admiralty Charts and the Making of Routes -- The Emergence of Steam -- 'The Seas Inlaid with Eloquent, Gentle Wires' -- Pilgrimage -- The Suez Canal -- Port Management of Routes -- Freight Rates -- Speculative Routes -- 2. Harbour-Making -- Curzon's 'Prancing in the Persian Puddle' -- Dammam -- Creeks and Harbours of the Trucial Coast -- Dubai -- Aden -- Making and Remaking the Land and the Sea -- 3. Palimpsests of Law and Corporate Sovereigns Weaponising Arbitration Tribunal -- Dubai Ports World -- Geophysical Features into Legal Categories -- The Offshore -- The Global Struggle Over Subsea Resources -- Free Zones -- Jabal Ali -- Saudi Economic Cities -- 4. Roads and Rails Leading Away -- Oil Roads and Rail -- Roads as Economic Pacification Weapons -- Competing Powers and Roads -- Federating Transports -- Peninsular Connections -- 5. 'Mechanic, Merchant, King' -- Tanker and Cargo Shipping Companies -- Merchants and Capitalists -- Insurance and Banking -- Advisers, Bureaucrats, and Experts -- The Technopolitics of Managing Ports 6. Landside Labour -- Conditions of Work -- Migration -- Protests in the Peninsula -- Politics or Workplace Protests? -- Forms of Protest -- Unions as Channels for Protest -- Chokepoints and Counterlogistics -- 7. Shipboard Work -- Lascars, Asiatics, and Others -- Circulation of Revolt -- Global Hierarchies Aboard Ships Today -- Working on Tankers -- Flagging -- 8. The Bounties of War -- Routes of War -- Wars of Routes -- The Utility of Regional Wars for the Peninsula -- Tankers, Wars, and Tanker Wars -- Desert Storm and After -- The Importance of Bases -- The Riches of Military Construction and Logistics -- Epilogue -- Glossary and Abbreviations -- Bibliography -- Media (Online and Print) and Trade Journals -- Court Cases -- Published Sources -- Notes -- Index