Jim Krane, Ph.D., is the Wallace S. Wilson Fellow for Energy Studies at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. His research addresses the geopolitical aspects of energy, with a focus on the Middle East, including Dubai. His scholarly articles focus on many of the issues covered in "City of Gold," such as energy consumption, investment and technology in oil-exporting states.Jim was also a longtime reporter in the Persian Gulf region who wrote "City of Gold," also published under the title "Dubai: The Story of the World's Fastest City." The book received warm reviews from the Financial Times, Bloomberg News, the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph and the New York Review of Books, among others.The book benefits from his unique insider-outsider perspective. Insider, because Jim got a rare look at the inner workings of government as a consultant in the office of Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed; Outsider because his is the first popular work with the scope and courage to examine every angle of Dubai's development - from the swish offices of the city's top policymakers to the grimy labor camps housing the underpaid men who built the city. Jim has been a journalist for nearly 18 years. He reported from the Middle East and beyond as the Associated Press's Dubai-based Gulf correspondent from 2005-2007. Prior to that he was AP's Baghdad correspondent, covering the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion and the rise of the Iraqi insurgency in 2003 and 2004. He also reported frequently from Afghanistan during those years. Previously Jim was an AP business writer in New York, focusing on technology news. Besides writing his book, Jim also pens freelance articles for the Financial Times and contributes to the Economist Intelligence Unit. Jim also reported for U.S. newspapers including The Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey); The News-Tribune (New Jersey); The Laredo Morning Times (Texas); APBNews.com, a now defunct news service; and Newhouse Newspapers' online operations. He is the winner of several journalism awards, including the 2003 AP Managing Editors Deadline Reporting Award, for coverage of Saddam Hussein's capture in Iraq. Why a book on Dubai? Jim arrived in Dubai in January 2005, where he found a city erupting onto the earth. Thousands of new residents streamed in each day. The entire city was a construction site, with more than 10 percent of the world's building cranes at work. Neighborhoods spread across the desert like kudzu. In the course of its six-year boom, Dubai swelled from a modest city the size of Milwaukee to a bloated megalopolis the size of Houston - doubling in population and quadrupling in area. Most incredibly, this wild growth was taking place within a short distance of the carnage in Iraq, and was receiving little notice in the United States. Dubai, it turned out, was the antithesis of Baghdad. As fast as Iraq was being destroyed - bombed, dismantled and otherwise collapsing - Dubai was accomplishing the opposite, casting off the vestiges of primitivity and rising into magnificence. There are few, if any, places on earth where the span of modernization is so compressed, where extreme capitalist excess is just a generation removed from Third World poverty. Here, men born in palm shacks became billionaires. Shrewd professors, holders of PhDs from American universities, had been raised by illiterate parents. The fact that such a success story has risen in the Arab world is of great importance, both inside the region and out. With little notice, Dubai's undemocratic capitalism has become the development model for the rest of the Middle East. Like it or not, the Dubai effect has already touched your life. But all is not well with this brash city-state. Dubai accomplished its feats on the backs of a vast labor force of mistreated men who have never received their due. The city's success has destroyed far more lives than was necessary. And its wild growth upset the demographic balance, leaving the city 95 percent foreign and nearly 80 percent male. Dubai's pampered natives are such a tiny minority that retaining their sovereignty has become a major worry. Meanwhile, prostitution has become a necessity, spawning the tragic industry of human trafficking. And, in the years since the onset of global recession, Dubai has emerged as the poster child of the previous era's gluttonous excess. Dubai's once soaring real estate values have collapsed further than anywhere on earth, and unemployed expatriates have fled for the exits. Krane's book examines the viability of Dubai's economic model, going forward. In short, Dubai is a fascinating topic. Subsequent research grants include awards from the Qatar National Research Fund, the Dubai School of Government and Cambridge University. Krane was based for more than a year in Iraq, where he covered the aftermath of the U.S. invasion and ensuing insurgency for AP. Previously, Krane was an AP Business writer in New York, responsible for technology news. He is the winner of several journalism awards, including the 2003 AP Managing Editors Deadline Reporting Award, received for his coverage of Saddam Hussein's capture in Iraq. Krane is a member of Cambridge University's Energy Policy Research Group, where his Ph.D. studies took place. He holds an M.Phil. in technology policy from Cambridge University's Judge Business School and a master's in international affairs from Columbia University.