Can one person write an entire encyclopedia? Let's not talk about all the diversity of the world, not about one continent, not about any people, but at least about one country? But only in such a way that it is really an encyclopedia, meticulously and in detail describing the nature, customs and customs of people, the economy and culture of the state, etc., etc.? Describing it in such a way that it is, as they say, "neither subtract nor add", so that it is simply impossible for other authors who have taken up the same topic to add at least something to this capital work? I confess that until recently I would have considered this absolutely impossible, impossible for one person, no matter how deep knowledge of a particular country he had. But today I have in my hands a book that-without any exaggeration and completely without discounts - can be called the "encyclopedia of one state". The book is called " Saudi Arabia. XXI century in the homeland of Islam: from the "world gas station" to the "laboratory of innovation and excellence". Author-K. P. Dudarev (Moscow, publishing house "Nedra". 2015, 420 p.). The genre of the work is difficult to determine. On the one hand, this" super-exhaustive "reference book is about the country, and describing it as an "encyclopedia" does not look like an exaggeration. On the other hand, it is a fascinating read that opens up a lot of information and facts about the rapidly developing state, about which we in Russia, in fact, do not know much. "...Saudi Arabia, the author writes, is one of the unique, unlike other states, which managed to combine the seemingly incompatible and live in two dimensions - in the early Middle Ages, when one of the three world religions, Islam, was born on the territory of this country, and at the same time in the XXI century, quickly adopting and adapting to its technical achievements." The secret of the encyclopedic level of this very voluminous (35.5 accounting and publishing sheets) work is in the subtit ... Читать далее