In less than two decades, Dubai has transformed itself from an obscure Gulf emirate into a global centre for business, tourism, & luxury living. It is a fascinating case study in light-speed urban development, hyperconsumerism, massive immigration, & vertiginous inequality. Its rulers have succeeded in making Dubai into a worldwide br&, publicizing its astonishing hotels & leisure opportunities while at the same time successfully downplaying its complex policies towards guest workers & suppression of dissent. In this enormously readable book, Syed Ali delves beneath the dazzling surface to analyze how
- & at what cost
- Dubai has achieved such success. Ali brings alive a society rigidly divided between expatriate Westerners living self-indulgent lifestyles on short-term work visas, native Emiratis who are largely passive observers & beneficiaries of what Dubai has become, & workers from the developing world who provide the manual labour & domestic service needed to keep the emirate running, often at great personal cost.