A History of Modern Yemen

by Paul Dresch

• ISBN13: 9780521794824
• ISBN10: 052179482X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-01-03
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

To the outside world, Yemen is famous for its beautiful landscapes and architecture. However, as Paul Dresch demonstrates, Yemen's modern history is unique and deserves to be better understood. While the borders of most Middle East states were defined by colonial powers after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, a single Yemeni state was not formed until 1990. In fact, much of Yemen's twentieth-century history was taken up constructing such a state, forged after years of civil war between the North and the South. The story is a complex one, but the author handles it masterfully, employing his skills as an anthropologist to re-enact the experiences of those involved through personal encounters and a first-hand knowledge of the region. The narrative is fast-moving and interactive, introducing the non-expert painlessly and pleasurably to a little-known slice of Arab history. Conversely, the expert will find much that is new on every page.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	ix
List of maps and figures	xi
Preface and acknowledgements	xiii
List of abbreviations	xvii
Turkey, Britain and Imam Yahya: the years around 1900	1	(27)
Imperial divisions	3	(8)
Premodern Yemen	11	(7)
Political connections	18	(4)
Forms of life	22	(6)
Yahya and the British: 1918--1948	28	(30)
Control of Yemen	28	(7)
Aden's hinterland and Hadramawt	35	(6)
A geographical intersection	41	(2)
The dynastic state	43	(6)
Modernist contradictions	49	(5)
The coup of 1948	54	(4)
A new form of politics: the 1950s	58	(31)
Changes in the South	58	(4)
The Aden hinterland	62	(3)
Ahmad's domain	65	(6)
The new politics	71	(6)
Cairo and Sanaa	77	(8)
Constitutions and revolution	85	(4)
Revolutions and civil wars: the 1960s	89	(31)
Revolution in the North	89	(7)
Armed struggle in the South	96	(3)
Aden as political focus	99	(3)
`Abd al-Nasir and Yemen	102	(6)
The end of the British in the South	108	(6)
The end of the Egyptians in the North	114	(4)
Consolidation of two states	118	(2)
Two Yemeni states in the 1970s	120	(31)
Socialism in half a country	120	(4)
Iryani, Hamdi and Salmayn	124	(7)
Two states in a sea of migrants	131	(4)
Salmayn and Ghashmi	135	(5)
The culture of two states	140	(5)
Politics and economics	145	(6)
Yemen in a wider world: politics and economics through the 1980s	151	(32)
Rivalry across the central area	151	(5)
The Northern state	156	(4)
Oil and gas	160	(3)
Intellectuals, economists and soldiers	163	(5)
The Southern state	168	(4)
Modern Yemen	172	(7)
Regional and wider politics	179	(4)
Yemen as a single state	183	(32)
Yemen and the Gulf crisis	183	(3)
The ``transitional period''	186	(9)
Control of Yemen	195	(3)
Political economy	198	(6)
The wider world	204	(5)
Someone else's millennium	209	(6)
Appendix 1: Major tribal groupings of the North	215	(1)
Appendix 2: A different history	216	(1)
Glossary	217	(2)
Brief chronology	219	(4)
Notes	223	(32)
References	255	(17)
Index	272