Today, Dubai is known as a gleaming, glittering cosmopolitan oasis, crowned by the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. But not long ago the city was as familiar with camels and dhows as it is now with Ferraris and indoor ski slopes. These pictures, taken in the late 1960s and early 1970s, show a society just on the cusp of the ambitious development that would soon be its hallmark. Above, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and the consitutional monarch of Dubai, leads a camel riding party in his youth.
Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding
