Look no further than the recent flap over a story on how expatriates rate the livability of the UAE to realise that this book’s depiction of digital turmoil in the media is both spot on and timely.
Forbes.com was forced to backtrack and note that the poll that ranked the UAE the least friendly country for expats was unscientific, and that a broader analysis vaulted it into the three best. Oops.
Stewart Pinkerton would not be surprised at such embarrassment.
The former Forbes magazine managing editor, whose book is subtitled The Inside Story of the Collapse of a Media Empire, chronicles with verve and panache the dead-tree publishing empire built by the Scotsman BC Forbes and taken to extraordinary heights by his free-spending son Malcolm. Then he witnesses Malcolm’s four sons, in their hubris and indecisiveness, preside over its shocking decline.
It’s a well-written yarn for general readers, delivered with both balance and attitude. The eccentricities of the Forbes clan make for amusement and disbelief, and through their dysfunction you can see the collapse coming – and snigger in delight as you realise, perhaps, that they got what they deserved.
Earth under attack: Cosmic impacts throughout history
- 4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon
- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.
- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater
- 1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.
- 1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
- 1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.
-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.
THE SPECS
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The specs
Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors
Power: 480kW
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)
On sale: Now
