The United Arab Emirates has invested a lot of money in its appearance: its skyscrapers, which include the tallest in the world; its luxury hotels; its partnerships with prestigious Western universities, from NYU to the Sorbonne. And yet, as the movement of ships through the Strait of Hormuz has slowed, it has become clear once again that the pulse of the UAE remains underground. In “Bottling the World Economy,” Adam Hanieh’s latest essay for the NYR Online , he describes how, as the UAE accumulated extraordinary wealth selling its fossil fuels, it also diversified what it produced from them, expanding into petrochemicals, oil-based plastics, fertilizers derived from natural gas, and other goods that have become crucial to food and industrial production around the world.…