Book Review: Uncommon Dubai +
Dubai is a city that is difficult to define. Unlike Rome, Athens, and Hong Kong, it does not have attributes that define it as one thing. It’s not an ancient city, or a cultural city. Is it even a financial city, or a trading city? Not even its architecture can define it. The fast-paced modernization of Dubai since the 1970s did not allow Dubai to be defined by a single, or even its multiple attributes.
Uncommon Dubai is a cultural critique of the UAE’s modernization over the past half decade. The book offers a refreshing outlook on the cultural development of the Emirates, focusing on areas such as urbanization, architecture, and society. Its chapters — Relate, Review, Recreate, and Reroute — touch upon different topics that give the reader a better reading of Dubai’s attributes that are difficult to see by merely driving down its roads.
The book looks into different stories of people who have lived in Dubai as far as pre-71. Reading it, you’ll find yourself, story by story, going back in time then slowly, maybe with dread, maybe with excitement, go into the present time with a different eye of what the city is.
I found the book at GPP, Alserkal Avenue. You’ll be able to find it on the publishers website Uncommon Guidebooks
