Expats: Travels in Arabia, from Tripoli to Teheran

Expats is Christopher Dickey's fascinating account of the new Arabia, and of the expatriates who have helped create it. The fabled Arab world - whose vast deserts, overwhelming solitude, and stark, noble civilizations once beguiled explorers like T. E. Lawrence and Wilfred Thesiger - is nowhere to be found today. The deserts remain, of course, but souks give way to shopping malls, fortresses crumble in the shadows of glittering hotels, and oases are replaced by ice-skating rinks. In Dubai a...