Based on real-life stories from an international school in Kuwait, which chart the survival of teachers from the thrown-in-at-the-deep-end start to the I-can't-believe-we-made-it finish. Outlandish comedy abounds as the teachers laugh and lose it, through a mine field of barriers to logic, and challenges to plain common sense.The book illuminates the startling excesses of the oil-money rich as they balance a past of poverty with an extreme pot of gold from the end of the rainbow. It shows Kuwait as a microcosm reflecting the more global issues surrounding waste, ecology, using more than we need, and consumerism gone mad. The stories reveal the pros and cons of teaching on the international circuit and how the teachers adapt to an alien land of dust, sexual and racial inequality and an oppressive political regime, both inside and outside school. Resilience, fortitude and a hefty dose of humour gets the teachers through to the end with a cheer and a wave.

The official monthly record of United States foreign policy.

Kuwait, unlike most of its neighbours, has a well-established national identity and a long history as a nation, dating back to the eighteenth century. In this book, first published in 1992, Dr. Jill Crystal focuses on two recurring themes in Kuwaiti history: one, the preservation of a sense of community in the face of radical economic, social and political transformations; the second, internal rivalry over the conventions governing relations among members of the community. Crystal skilfully weaves these themes into a broad profile of Kuwait, analysing the nation’s transformation from a pre-oil to an oil economy; its social structure and composition, including the country’s tribal roots and key divisions involving class, gender and immigrant labour; political tensions resulting from the nation’s sudden wealth and the accompanying changes in social structure; and its relations with other countries in the Gulf and the Middle East.

The Arabian Gulf region is a vulnerable flashpoint. Small states in this region try to leverage their core interests against big power domination. This book narrates the problematique of Kuwait, whose geostrategic weakness was exposed in 1990, forcing her to trade resource strength for security guarantees. In recent years, challenged by regional rivalries, environmental impacts, falling oil prices and the dangers of terrorist insurgency, Kuwait faces an escalating security dilemma. With the imminent disengagement of the U.S. from Middle Eastern entanglements, should Kuwait resort to hedging partnerships with emerging multipolar giants like China, Russia or India? Can Kuwait survive domestic challenges of a youth bulge, a huge expatriate population, budgetary deficits, increasing public welfare and costs of desalination? What would be the main security options for Kuwait in a world that is increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous?