Page 295 - UAE Truncal States
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Chapter Seven
                  neighbouring Muslim countries, from India, from Europe, and from
                  the USA. Consequently their demands on the Slate and on society
                  have changed: no longer do the men live as bachelors in a
                  construction-camp cared for by their employer; they now have their
                  families with them in flats or in villas, and they require the services of
                  a modern State.55
                    Throughout the period of its pre-industrial development, which
                  may be considered to end with the decision to build the tanker dry
                  dock in 19 73,50 the economic tendencies and the social changes
                  which have characterised the period since the turn of the century in
                  the towns of the Trucial States are seen most clearly in Dubai. The
                  impact of the expansion as well as of the decline of the pearling
                  industry was most pronounced in this City State without its own
                  tribal hinterland to fall back on. The early business activities in the
                  area helped Dubai to have a head start over the neighbouring
                  shaikhdoms, and the move of the British Political Agent for the
                  Trucial States to Dubai both directly and indirectly helped it to
                  embark on planning a new economic order, and on setting up social
                  services, which were to be for some time an example to the other
                  shaikhdoms.































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