BOOK TALK: A PORTRAIT OF ‘THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING’ - Join the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative for a discussion with Pulitzer Prize-winning editor and reporter Karen House about her new book, The Man Who Would be King: Mohammed bin Salman and the Transformation of Saudi Arabia.

The book provides an in-depth portrait of the leader who, at only thirty-nine, is becoming a major player on the world stage for the next half century.

House, a former Wall Street Journal publisher, will talk about the nearly half century she has spent covering Saudi Arabia and about her unmatched access to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with which she has tracked the sweeping changes he has unleashed in Saudi Arabia. She will also recount her exclusive interviews, which reveal how the once shy, sixth son of King Salman wrested power from his older relatives, and transformed “what was once a somnolent society that resembled a silent movie with infirm old men saying and doing nothing” into an “IMAX movie on fast forward.”

ORIGINAL AIRDATE: 07/17/2025