In 1945 Qatar had no schools or telephones and only one doctor to serve the estimated population of around 25,000. During the 1950s and 1960s the economy grew as oil revenues poured in. By the mid-1970s Qatar had the second highest GNP per head in the world, exceeded only by Kuwait. The evolution of the monetary and banking system in Qatar enabling this transformation has not, until now, been well documented. This book chronicles the abandonment of...