Inside Qatar

Hidden Stories from One of the Richest Nations on Earth

John McManus

• Publisher: Icon Books
• Year: 2022
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781785788222
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

'A wonderful and sometimes devastating book ... sophisticated, nuanced, fair-minded and yet very hard hitting' SIMON KUPER, author of SOCCERNOMICS

'This will transport you to Qatar and teach you with humanity and empathy some of the dark truths about globalisation' BEN JUDAH, author of THIS IS LONDON

'John McManus is a remarkable, compelling writer' RORY STEWART, author of THE PLACES IN BETWEEN

'Wise, well informed, fair-minded and honest' PETER OBORNE, author of THE ASSAULT ON TRUTH

AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT OF LIFE IN ONE OF THE WORLD'S RICHEST NATIONS AHEAD OF THE FIFA 2022 WORLD CUP

Just 75 years ago, the Gulf nation of Qatar was a backwater, reliant on pearl diving. Today it is a gas-laden parvenu with seemingly limitless wealth and ambition. Skyscrapers, museums and futuristic football stadiums rise out of the desert and Ferraris race through the streets. But in the shadows, migrant workers toil in the heat for risible amounts.

Inside Qatar reveals how real people live in this surreal place, a land of both great opportunity and great iniquity. Ahead of Qatar's time in the limelight as host of the 2022 FIFA Men's World Cup, anthropologist John McManus lifts a lid on the hidden worlds of its gilded elite, its spin doctors and thrill seekers, its manual labourers and domestic workers.

The sum of their tales is not some exotic cabinet of curiosities. Instead, Inside Qatar opens a window onto the global problems - of unfettered capitalism, growing inequality and climate change - that concern us all.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• A note on particulars
• Maps
• 1: ‘Excuse me, kind sir. I am very ill’
• 2: ‘Now, everybody they like falcon’
• 3: ‘I know I am the driver. I can’t take my family here’
• 4: ‘In media yes, very very good but in the reality nothing. Zero’
• 5: ‘There are so many people looking for job in this country’
• 6: ‘I’ve got an S-Class Mercedes picking me up in the morning and taking me to work’
• 7: ‘It’s like Leicester winning the Premier League with homegrown players’
• 8: ‘Here we are all expats. So we are all on a journey, on a pilgrimage’
• 9: ‘King of the bat’
• 10: ‘I’m not “your maid”. I am Maggie!’
• 11: ‘It’s just really sad if this is what news is’
• 12: ‘I was all alone. I had to do what I was told’
• 13: ‘The lungs of Doha’
• 14: ‘It’s getting hotter and hotter every year’
• 15: ‘I’ve met lots of happier people than us in Qatar’
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Acknowledgements
• Index
• Copyright