Counter-Narratives History, Contemporary Society, and Politics in Saudi Arabia and Yemen

by Al-Rasheed, Madawi; Vitalis, Robert

• ISBN13: 9781403963871
• ISBN10: 1403963878
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-03-18
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Saudi Arabia and Yemen are two countries of crucial importance in the Middle East and yet our knowledge about them is highly limited, while typical ways of looking at the histories of these countries have impeded understanding. Counter-Narratives brings together a group of leading scholars of the Middle East using new theoretical and methodological approaches to cross-examine standard stories, whether as told by Westerners or by Saudis and Yemenis, and these are found wanting. The authors assess how grand historical narratives such as those produced by states and colonial powers are currently challenged by multiple historical actors, a process which generates alternative narratives about identity, the state and society.

Author Biography

Madawi Al-Rasheed is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at King's College, University of London.

Robert Vitalis is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

List of Maps	vii
Acknowledgments	ix
Notes on Contributors	x
Introduction	1	(246)
Madawi Al-Rasheed and Robert Vitalis
1. Arabia Incognita: An Invitation to Arabian Peninsula Studies	11	(24)
Sheila Carapico
2. The 'Imama vs. the 'Igal: Hadari-Bedouin Conflict and the Formation of the Saudi State	35	(42)
Abdulaziz H. Al-Fahad
3. Ecology, Knowledge, and Trade in Central Arabia (Najd) during the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries	77	(26)
Guido Steinberg
4. Shifting Loyalties and Failed Empire: A New Look at the Social History of Late Ottoman Yemen, 1872-1918	103	(16)
Isa Blumi
5. Leaving Only Question-Marks: Geographies of Rule in Modern Yemen	119	(32)
John M. Willis
6. Aramco World: Business and Culture on the Arabian Oil Frontier	151	(32)
Robert Vitalis
7. The Capture of Riyadh Revisited: Shaping Historical Imagination in Saudi Arabia	183	(18)
Madawi Al-Rasheed
8. Struggles Over History and Identity: "Opening the Gates" of the Kingdom to Tourism	201	(28)
Gwenn Okruhlik
9. Evacuating Memory in Postrevolutionary Yemen	229	(18)
Gabriele vom Bruck
10. Seeing Like a Citizen, Acting Like a State: Exemplary Events in Unified Yemen	247	(38)
Lisa Wedeen
Bibliography	285	(20)
Index	305