Word: modernize
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...possessed by an impossible dream: to create as quickly as possible a modern industrial nation in the ancient sands of Persia. It was his advantage, but perhaps also his undoing, that he had the petrodollars to pursue that goal. He carried out some land reform, but the big money went to such projects as petrochemical factories and nuclear plants. Hundreds of thousands of peasant farmers moved to the cities to get jobs. Skyscrapers soared, as did inflation-to an estimated 50% last year...
...Saud has had close contacts with the puritanical Wahhabi sect of Sunni Muslims who dominate the country's religious life. Opinions of the ulema, the leading religious authorities, are sought on major issues. Their power was demonstrated last year when they successfully demanded the razing of an entire modern city that had been built for pilgrims near Mecca on the sacred Hill of Arafat. The ulema ordered it destroyed because it desecrated a holy place, and the government reluctantly agreed. The royal family also endorses the ulema's determination to enforce strict Koranic law on Saudi citizens...
...been wandering through East Cambridge with a camera, looking for urban landscapes and trying to feel like an artist. But after a couple of hours I had found nothing that would get me into the Museum of Modern Art and snow clouds were soaking up what was left of the late afternoon light. I decided to head home...
What if it were true? What if even just a part of it were true? There were so many possibilities, so many ways that such conspiracies could grow in the modern world with the systems of power so unaccountable and so intertwined, not just on the surface but intertwined deeply on many unpredictable levels...
Land developed the first modern polarizers of light, which led to his subsequent invention of the Polaroid photographic process...