The work's thorough depiction of the material culture of Bedouin nomads, who for at least part of the year made their home in Qatar, is the primary attraction of the book for ethnographers, historians, and Qataris themselves. At a time when the countries of the Gulf are defining what it is that makes them Qatari or Emirati or Saudi or Kuwaiti, this publication will be welcomed by the Qataris--and indeed by their other Gulf neighbors--as a means to imagine their national communities.