Customer Reviews

The New Gulf - How Modern Arabia is Changing the World for Good

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Opportunity Dubai: Making a Fortune in the Middle East At the online bookstore Amazon.com there is a useful facility that says `people who bought this book also bought this one'.

For`Opportunity Dubai' the companion volume that appears is `The Snowball', the recent biography of Warren Buffett. But really the best title to choose would be `The New Gulf' by Edmund O'Sullivan, the veteran journalist and regional conference impresario.

Reading the right books is extremely important if you want a deeper understanding of any subject, and modern Arabia is comparatively short of authors offering analysis and insight into the big issues. My own book does not venture much further than Dubai and concentrated on a case study of a successful dot-com.

Deeper insight
Eddie O'Sullivan tackles a much broader canvas and paints a vivid portrait of the evolution of modern Arabia, delving into archaeology as well as oil price booms. It is an eclectic collection of facts and figures, mostly organized in an accessible fashion.

The broad sweep of the opening chapter sets out Eddie's main insight: that the Gulf has made astonishing progress over the past few decades and by 2030 will represent the world's sixth wealthiest economic bloc, with three times today's GDP in real terms.

2030 vision
Now some readers might take that for granted. But I certainly agree with Eddie's point that this is a remarkable achievement and likely to get even better.

A quarter of a century ago I worked as a trainee development economist in the European Commission in Brussels assisting Francophone Africa. On completing my traineeship no lesser figure than the Commissioner himself asked me for my conclusions at a cocktail party.

He said I was frightfully cynical for a young man when I told him in no uncertain terms Africa was going backwards and not forwards, and that I saw no reason to believe that would change.

How different in the Gulf of Arabia: oil money has helped but then Africa did not lack resources. It lacked human capital, both in terms of under population and education, and a certain moral and institutional framework to its society.

Progress to come
Eddie's analysis comes as close to any I have seen in explaining why the Gulf of Arabia has achieved so much more over the same timeframe. Looking forward is perhaps easier as the huge investments in real estate and infrastructure being made at this time will translate into a diversified and growing economy based on the low cost of energy in the region.

Yet Eddie does gloss over some of the difficulties that remain, and barely mentions that the majority of the population is still expatriate. But there is a commendable review of the terrorist atrocities in the kingdom since 9/11, and a fairly frank appraisal of moves towards a more open society.

This is also a historical reference book and anybody needing facts and figures about past oil price booms or regime changes will find plenty of meat here. It is also a reminder in this time of economic gloom and doom that the Gulf has survived many difficult periods and always come out on top.

With nothing else like it available, `The New Gulf' should be sitting on your bookshelf.

I found this book well researched.It explains the history of the various Arab nations in the Persian Gulf and how and why they are prospering.
If you have any fears of these nations being involved in some war by reading this book you'll understand that there will not be any war. There is too much business going on and lots of opportunity to create more wealth.