“The museum’s history is turbulent — a saga of economic downturn, collapsing oil prices, regional political tensions and fierce French intellectual debates about the risks of lending its national treasures to the Middle East in exchange for petrodollars. Through it all the Louvre Abu Dhabi has brought together East and West and also managed to unite France’s fractious national museums, which submerged envy and ego to cooperate on the project brokered by two governments.”