The Doha Experiment

“This book despite its many moments of levity offers a serious and important lesson about the possibilities,and limitations, of American education as a bridge between cultures.”
—Senator Dick Durbin, from the foreword

“Given the number of American universities that have established satellites in distant parts of the world, it’s remarkable so few people have written about this phenomenon. Gary Wasserman’s account of his experience in Qatar is a fascinating introduction to this very twenty-first century meeting of cultures: subtle, full of insight, often wise and sometimes hilarious.”
—Adam Hochshild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost and Spain in Our Hearts

“The Doha Experiment is a thought-provoking memoir about the experience and difficulty of imparting a liberal education in a segment of the Arab Gulf. The challenges confronting the bright and highly motivated women students are richly drawn. Wasserman describes the tensions between the boundaries imposed by tradition and the impact of a western college education that expanded horizons and promoted individualism. Were women students being educated for a world inimical to their environment? Would they become change makers or revert to their previous lives? It’s a fascinating read.”
—Melanne Verveer, former US ambassador for global women’s issues, author of Fast Forward: How Women Can Achieve Power and Purpose

“This is a richly informative first-hand account of what it is like to live and to teach US politics in a conservative Arab-Muslim society. Professor Wasserman went to Qatar armed with wry wit, street smarts and no pretensions; he receives an ‘A’ for his ability to understand, sympathize, and identify with his students.”
—Ira M. Lapidus, emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic history at the University of California at Berkeley, author of A History of Islamic Studies

“Gary Wasserman has written a funny, intelligent, insightful, little book about an important experiment in higher education that is still unfolding. There is a lot that is uplifting and promising about the story, but there is much that points to the limits of the engagement as well, and Wasserman does not spare the reader. It is an honest book with a good story, warts and all.”
—Robert Gallucci, former dean of the School of Foreign Service, former president of the MacArthur Foundation

“This is a lively, highly readable, and informative book. Perceptive, frank, and relentlessly probing, Wasserman takes on one of the most important and controversial questions currently facing America’s liberal ‘super brand’ universities: whether they can successfully transplant their liberal curricula and scholastic traditions to parts of the world where liberalism has yet to secure a firm foothold. To get a handle on the problems of globalized Western education, there is no better place to begin than Wasserman’s wise, sensitive and unbiased assessment.”
—Robert G. Wirsing, professor of government (retired), Georgetown University School of Foreign Service at Qatar

“A fascinating, deeply personal account of a remarkable experiment. Wasserman captures the promise and peril of seeking to impart liberal education in an illiberal environment while maintaining the integrity of the providers.”
—Robert J. Lieber, professor of government and international affairs, Georgetown University, author of Retreat and Its Consequences: American Foreign Policy and the Problem of World Order

“It is amazing, so smooth to read, too friendly to realize easily it is not only a narrative of a personal experience, but a journey to a different culture that has been misrepresented by simplifications, and stereotypes.”
—Abbas Al-Tonsi, senior instructor at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar

“‘A Jewish guy walks into a Catholic school in an Arab country…’ Not surprisingly, the guy’s family get ready to chant the customary prayer for the dead. ‘Stay away from the Arabs,’ his elderly aunt pleads. Fortunately for us, Gary Wasserman did not take their advice and lived to tell this amusing and informative story of The Doha Experiment. This is a highly entertaining and insightful book from a natural story-teller and teacher who possesses an instinct for bending people’s views by getting them to laugh with him.”
—John Harte, author of How Churchill Saved Civilization and Churchill The Young Warrior

“Gary Wasserman has written a marvelously engaging study of Qatar’s ambition to transform itself from an oil kingdom into an educational oasis. It is rich in insight about teachers and students, the roles of women and men, and the clash between Westerners and Middle-Easterners. The themes it touches upon are as timeless as the call to prayers, and as relevant as today’s news headlines. Read it. It will help you understand the world you live in.”
—Chris McNickle, author of Bloomberg: A Billionaire’s Ambition

“The Doha Experiment is riveting reading about the complexities of introducing American-style university education in a distinctly non-American culture. But it is also important for its insights into the unexpectedly important state of Qatar, which is at the center of current Middle Eastern politics. Though very much about universities and their missions, it is written in a conversational style that is accessible to any reader. And it deserves a wide audience!”
—Sanford Levinson, author of Our Undemocratic Constitution

“Students at Georgetown’s Doha campus master the art of thinking globally while living locally. They hold the promise of a new generation of culturally-rooted and broad-minded global leaders. Gary Wasserman’s striking account is candid about the challenges but also shows how much has been accomplished.”
—Jim O’Donnell, former provost, Georgetown University

“In this gripping narrative, Gary Wasserman reflects not only on what the globalization of American education in the twenty-first century means for a troubled region, what opportunities it opens up, and what challenges it poses, but also how this rich journey helped him overcome his apprehensions and see the region in a different light. Written in a lucid style and accessible language, the book offers a firsthand account of what it means for an expatriate academic living in the Middle East to venture outside his or her zone of comfort and discover how culture, religion and politics intersect in complex ways.”
—Mohamed Zayani, editor of The Digital Middle East: State and Society in the Information Age

“This memoir about living and teaching in Doha, Qatar, offers an intriguing look inside an Arab country: the tension between fundamentalism, custom and liberalism; the impact of wealth in a society where only a tiny proportion are Qataris; the place of outsiders; and the value of an education, particularly for women. Wasserman offers an insightful take on the difficulties (and modest successes) in teaching western liberal ideas in a Middle Eastern setting. An invaluable read for anyone interested in cross-cultural education.”
—Julia C. Tobey, editor, Captain McCrea’s War

“In The Doha Experiment, Gary Wasserman blends entertainment with education as he describes his experiences as a Jewish teacher at Georgetown’s newly-established School of Foreign Service in Qatar. Using humor as a tool, not only while teaching his students about the ways of American democracy but also in detailing his eight years as a fish out of water in the desert of the Middle East, Wasserman finds the common denominators that hold us together as human beings instead of the differences that tear us apart. He learned as much as he taught, and readers will do the same.”
—Mike Farris, author of the Amazon bestseller A Death in the Islands: The Unwritten Law and the Last Trial of Clarence Darrow

“Gary Wasserman's laugh-out-loud book is a rarity in an age of social media narcissism: an acutely self-aware book about the writer’s limitations set against a quixotic attempt to resolve the Middle East to the West. The best parts are when he lets his students speak: They are funny, heart-breaking. and wise, and his love for them will make your day.”
—Ron Kampeas, Washington bureau chief of the Jewish Telegraph Agency “Awash in a sea of liquid natural gas, Qatar enjoys the world's highest per capita GDP. The ‘Doha experiment’ is fueled by that wealth and has many faces—Al-Jazeera, ‘charitable’ donations to terrorist groups, military bases for Americans, a ludicrously extravagant $200 billion bid for the 2022 World Cup, and the importation of US universities lock, stock, and barrel to Doha's ‘Education City.’ Gary Wasserman was a key player in Georgetown's Doha program, and his entertaining account of eight years teaching there to a mix of students from Qatar, the surrounding Arab world, and big non-Arab states like Pakistan reveals as well as any analysis the sharp limits to change in today’s Islamic world.”
—Geoffrey Wawro, author of Quicksand: America's Pursuit of Power in the Middle East