J.E. Peterson is the author and/or editor of a dozen books on the Arabian Peninsula and Gulf, including most recently The Emergence of the Gulf States (editor) and Saudi Arabia Under Ibn Saud (author). Earlier books dealt with Gulf security, Yemen politics, and political participation in the Gulf. He has also produced three editions of the Historical Dictionary of Saudi Arabia. He has published three books on Oman based on extensive research on and in the sultanate and all the states of the Arabian Peninsula since 1974 and ten years of residence and working in Oman.