The city of Dubai is a remarkable success story. From its origins as a small fishing and pearling community, the emirate has steadily grown in strength to become the premier trading center of the Arabian Gulf. It is also the locus of an exciting and innovative architectural revolution. Despite the lack of democratization and genuine civil society, Dubai is now a booming metropolis of more than two million people, most of whom are expatriates enjoying the benefits of the city's increasingly diversified economy. After providing a detailed history, Christopher Davidson explains Dubai's current prosperity by presenting an in-depth study of its post-oil development strategies and how they were implemented against a backdrop of near complete political stability.…
"When it was first published it was banned in the UAE. It’s billed as an academic tome but it’s an easy, illuminating read; wound around the facts are anecdotes and stories that lay bare the vulnerable position Dubai has placed itself in by making itself into a “brand”. Without the oil of its big brother Abu Dhabi, it has focused its efforts on financial services, property and tourism, all arenas that require foreign investment. Seeing this vulnerability Davidson sees the bubble bursting. With the crash old news, the ban has been lifted. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter But the book isn’t simply an analysis of an economic model; it delves into the past and tracks the unlikely story of this little settlement on the edge of a desert. We see how a tiny town inhabited by fishermen and pearlers – a trading stop on the silk route – muscled its way on to the world stage. These glimpses of history show the huge culture shock of modernisation; the simple life of fishing and pearling, tending dates or tending livestock in the desert has been replaced with a western-based way of life. Just a few decades ago the tiny population knew each other as family. Now huge cities are a challenge to identity. There used to be sand everywhere, roads used to run straight into sand, and everything was covered in dust. Now you could be in Dubai or Abu Dhabi and not really know you were near the desert at all. And Dubai has Abu Dhabi to contend with; the oil-rich capital has recognised that this is its moment and is stepping in with huge global plans."
