This chapter highlights the primary features of politics and society in the Persian Gulf from the rise of civilization to World War I. It provides a survey of state-tribe relations in the Gulf from antiquity until the introduction of European powers. It will then turns to a consideration of the triangular relationship between states, tribes, and foreign powers in the Gulf, with an emphasis on the period of British supremacy. It identifies the appropriate theoretical tools pertaining to tribes and tribal politics in the Arabian Peninsula, which can be used to better understand how British intervention was viewed by the tribally organized societies situated around the Gulf's perimeter. The advent of nationalism in Iran and the consolidation of Iran's frontiers beginning in the late Qajar period are discussed as well as the waves of Iranian immigration that laid the foundations of politics and society in the Gulf Arab shaykhdoms. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the profound changes that were beginning to take shape in the regional system on the eve of World War I.