""City of Gold" offers a vivid guide to how a Bedouin tribe turned a mud village on a scrap of desert into a glittering city state."--Bloomberg "This landmark work is recommended to those interested in the history, politics, and economics of the Middle East; an excellent choice for anyone who wishes to learn more about Dubai."--Library Journal "The modern city-state of Dubai exists largely because two men willed it so. Through a combination of prescient investment of resources, grandiose vision and the freedoms of absolute rule, the late Sheikh Rashid and his son (and current ruler) Sheikh Mohammed transformed the backwater village into a global powerhouse "erupting onto the earth." Mohammed's "ideas are so stamped on the landscape that two of his poems are being written on the sea as a group of [artificial] islands." Dubai-based journalist Krane does a superb job of conveying the near-manic atmosphere swirling around the creation of the world's tallest building (half a mile high), first indoor ski slope (in a mall) and--incidentally--the world's largest carbon footprint, revealing the creativity and tolerance that characterize a city where 95% of its residents are foreigners, as well as the inevitable costs of such lavish ambition. Environmental needs have been ignored (another island was built atop a coral reserve, and migrant laborers and sex workers face routine abuse and exploitation. A fascinating study of a small nation that has taken the ideas of modernization and capitalism to their outer limits."--Publishers Weekly, Starred Review "The author hits his stride when he assesses Dubai's current ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. He proceeds to examine this small emirate with admirable even-handedness and good humour. But Krane also writes movingly of the conditions of the Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi workers who have built Dubai."--The Atlantic "The history of a little Emirate's epic transformation, from an impoverished pearling enclave, to the shining city on the hill, is revealed in full detail. Jim Krane is a great reporter, whose journalistic credentials are brought to bear in this unique work that is infused with facts, ample history, emotion and stunning narratives. He leads his audience into the nooks and crannies of the "unknown" Dubai, to reveal the humanity and intrigue that pulsates beneath the surface. He shows how powerful persons with a global reach collaborated to build an economic gem out of the desert. This is a fast-moving Arabian tale, but very much a modern one; not only laden with facts, it is a guidebook and cautionary tale for other developing nations in their quest to rapidly achieve the Western dream."-- Justin Dargin, Harvard University - author of Desert Dreams and The Dolphin Project: The Development of a Gulf Gas Initiative "Dubai is fortunate to have as skilled and passionate a chronicler as Jim Krane. The city leaps off these pages with panache, brassiness, splendor and suffering. There is no better book about Dubai, and there may never be." --Jon Alterman, Director of the Middle East Program at CSIS and author of The Vital Triangle: China, The United States and The Middle East "How did one of the planet's last unexplored wastelands, for millennia ignored by history, become in just a few short decades the playground of the unimaginably rich? In City of Gold, Jim Krane traces the fascinating and long overlooked history of Dubai, from pirate battles and eccentric British explorers to the glittering spires of a metropolis that emerged from nowhere, in prose as spare and enchanting as a desert fairy tale."--James Hider, author of The Spiders of Allah: Travels of an Unbeliever on the Frontline of Holy War and Mideast correspondent The Times of London "A marvelous book. Beautifully written! Jim Krane has written a fascinating account of a Middle East we rarely get to hear about. Jim Krane's book on Dubai's rise and fall -- in this era of global financial crisis -- is a cautionary tale for us all."--Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, NPR Middle East Correspondent Excerpted from City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism by Jim Krane All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
