Qatar. A Modern History

This book review must necessarily start with its extraordinary author: A young Fulbright scholar (32) from Oregon, educated in St. Andrews (Scotland) and Dartmouth College (New Hampshire). Since 2008 Assistant Professor of Islamic History at Georgia State University, and has managed to produce within three years three major publications on Ibn Khaldun, the Almohad dynasty and Qatar (where he spent twelve months). When comparing today’s Tunisia and Egypt with the European upheavals of 1848, Fromherz displays his general erudition as well, running from Baudelaire to Martin Heidegger.

Fromherz vividly describes how Qatar, from being the poorest of the poor (with Doha as a fishing village), became the world’s richest commonwealth (with Doha as a skyscraper studded splendour with 1.7 million inhabitants of which only 225.000 are local citizens). One should add that it features I.

M. Pei’s fabulous Museum of Islamic Art – the most significant collection of Islamic art I ever saw, exclusively presenting unique chefs d’oeuvres.

As for the author, it is astonishing for me that: in filthy-rich Qatar family loyalties remain as dominant as ever; that without conflict between tradition and modernity, what counts in Qatar is who you are – not what you do; that Qatari modernization came without Westernization and thus wealth without destructive industrialization – oil industry requiring few workers only.