In the 1970s, one of the most torrid and forbidding regions in the world burst on to the international stage. The discovery and subsequent exploitation of oil allowed tribal rulers of the U.A.E, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait to dream big. How could fishermen, pearl divers and pastoral nomads catch up with the rest of the modernized world? Even today, society is skeptical about the clash between the modern and the archaic in the Gulf. But could tribal and modern be intertwined rather than mutually exclusive? Exploring everything from fantasy architecture to neo-tribal sports and from Emirati...

Dark Nebulae, Dark Lanes, and Dust Lanes looks out into the deep sky to see "the spaces between the words..."

While not usually considered independently, many of the apparent dark 'voids' in space are among the most compelling telescopic destinations. One well-known example is Barnard's dark nebulae - those striking dark clouds set against (and strikingly obscuring) the background of stars in the Milky Way - but there are countless other less-discussed varieties. Among the brightly illuminated cosmic spectacles that easily come to the astronomer's mind - with few...