Review

At first I worried that the book would be a Gladwell-eque adventure in drawing sweeping conclusions from limited anecdotes, but I actually found it to be a reasonable and refreshing way to interweave some interesting stories into a more useful meta-narrative. It leaves a lot of questions unanswered and does not set out with a concrete central idea, but for the size of the issues it sets out to tackle, I think this was the best approach.

This is the perspective of reading the book in Arabic from a native English speaker: How do I describe a collection of short stories like this? Clearly, it is impossible to doubt the quality of the stories, each of which was interesting and entertaining in its own right. My favorites were the ‘Tale of the Lamp’ in which we see a starved traveler stumble upon a rich kingdom, and ‘The Night and the Sea’ which painted a bleak but moving picture with its rich descriptions and overwhelming emotions. ...

A story of a family rather than a story of a nation. But the lines in a nation bearing the family’s name are blurred, and this is still the starting block for any understanding of the Modern Saudi state.

Sadly one of the best Harry Potter books with the worst translation. Every mark of a lazy editing process and poor proofreading are present: typos in the names of characters, swapping characters without warning, misaligned pages, repeated pages, and more. يعني أحب أن أقرأ هاري بوتر باللغة الإنجليزية، و لكنني أقول لك إن من الاحسن أن تقرأ الأمير الهجين أو مقدسات الموت بدلاً من هذا الكتاب.

A Net Genner on the Net Generation . I’ll admit, I didn’t read this book cover to cover. I spent about 3 hours reading it, which probably means that I ‘read’ about half and skimmed the rest. This speaks both to the book’s strengths and its weaknesses. On one hand, the book is clearly organized, with three levels of subtitles within the book making skimming much more efficient. On the other hand as a member of the generation that Tapscott is trying to describe, at least 60% of the information is intuitive to the point of banality. ...

Intermediate in vocabulary but basic in style and grammar. Save one page, does no analysis on style past the sentence level. Most of the book is spent on tense, and little time is given to finer points of explanation. Most of the exercises consist of repeating in writing what the book has already written. There are annoying typos and unhelpful repetition abounds. I’m not sure I would recommend this book to anyone. Spend some real time with the Al-Kitaab series or read Ryding’s Arabic grammar reference for grammar.

[Translated from an Arabic version] I began reading Dubai and Co shortly after I finished Christopher Davidsons’s work entitled “Dubai: The vulnerability of success”. I also have some background in Dubai as I resided there in 2005. Ever since that time, I have been interested in Dubai, especially its infrastructure, government and economy. Still, information on these subjects remains sparse save the ubiquitous wire article about the latest tower being completed in the Emirate. So, Rehman seems to be in the right place at the right time to talk about this booming city state. ...

Despite the myriad of articles and sound bites about the latest achievements of Dubai, works dedicated to an in depth analysis of the city state have been extremely sparse. Search Dubai in Amazon and nearly all the books published were travel guides, with the exception of the book Dubai & Co. There is a smattering of outdated literature about the UAE, but this does not little to illuminate the underlying trends and contradictions of the Emirate. Therefore Christopher M Davidson’s academic work is particularly interesting and timely. Titled the vulnerability of success, this book has become the ‘go to’ for a history of the Emirate and the ability to put the current achievements in context. Upon starting the book, I immediately skipped from the 19th century tribal histories to the last chapter on the eponymous ‘Vulnerabilities of Success’. I was disappointed to find little that had not already been discussed in further detail elsewhere. For example, the subsection: ‘Present threat of Terror’ merited only 2 pages, and the dynamics of the economy in the last few years seems largely neglected. For those looking for an up to date picture of Dubai politics and economics, even The Report Dubai 2007 contains more depth. But lacking any other reading material on Dubai, I flipped back to 19th century tribal politics. Despite his title, Davidson’s work on the history of Dubai is the core of this book, and where he certainly has the most to contribute. Through his narrative it becomes clear how far back the tradition of capitalism and immigration extend, exemplified in the anecdote that “Some of the earliest motorcars imported into Dubai were purchased for the expressed purpose of bringing Pakistanis across the mountains from Fujairah so they could work without the need for visas or time consuming paperwork.” (91) Davidson also gives satisfactory answers to some of the most vexing questions about demographics, such as stating authoritatively that nationals account for only 4% of the population, and that 75% of the population is male. (168, 192) Finally, he manages to provide a complete picture of Dubai’s role in the UAE and the gulf. One revelation is that the UAE actually convinced Saddam to leave power: The UAE also tried to head off the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq by offering Saddam Hussein and his family sanctuary on the condition that he respected Bush’s ultimatum and left Iraq. Although it would appear that Saddam actually accepted this proposal, only for the Arab League to later force the UAE to withdraw it on the grounds that it represented interference in a fellow member’s internal affairs. (p. 168 from Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed in 2005) Another is the recent integration of Dubai’s forces into the UAE network, and the Unions attempts to cozy up to numerous western powers. In sum, this is the reference book that lays the groundwork for further research on Dubai’s history. While weak in analyzing emerging trends, Davidson’s is valuable due to a thorough and interesting investigation into the context of the phenomenon that is Dubai.

While the prose is not spectacular, the ideas are. While many people seem to be annoyed by the overly visual and geometric descriptions, I found them interesting if vague. Unfortunately Bear didn’t seem to be in his element when describing politics, personal relations, or heaven forbid, sex. None of this got in the way, and in the end the exponential nature of the plot made it more than worth reading.

First In, is a first person account of the events between the 19th of September until the 10th of November, told mainly from the perspective of Gary Schroen, leader of the JAWBREAKER CIA squad sent to establish relations with the Northern Alliance in the Panjshir Valley, near the stalemated frontlines of the Taliban. Despite being the lead of US forces in Afghanistan (a 7 man crew), his account is very low to the ground, recounting the incessant problems of Diarrhea and relations and the daily interactions with Northern Alliance leaders. The details make the story, such as taking naps on boxes holding $10 million in cash or the simple pleasure of Starbucks coffee brewed in the field. ...