First published in 1993. The recent history of the Kuwait economy has been inextricably bound up with the history of oil. During the past decade Kuwait's economic development has been affected by two severe shocks - a collapse in an unofficial stock market in 1982, and the invasion in 1990 coupled with the subsequent war of liberation in the following year. These shocks occurred during a period in which other adverse economic and political events were impinging on the region: the falling price of oil and the Iran-Iraq war being the most prominent. How these shocks affected Kuwait, and especially its economic future, and how they were managed in order to limit their effects, form the common theme throughout this book.