Why is Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, involved in a costly and merciless war against its mountainous southern neighbor Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East? When the Saudis attacked the hitherto obscure Houthi militia, which they believed had Iranian backing, to oust Yemen's government in 2015, they expected an easy victory. They appealed for Western help and bought weapons worth billions of dollars from Britain and America; yet two years later the Houthis, a unique Shia sect, have the upper hand.
In her revealing portrait of modern Yemen, Ginny Hill delves into its recent history, dominated by the enduring and pernicious influence of career dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, who ruled for three decades before being forced out by street protests in 2011. Saleh masterminded patronage networks that kept the state weak, allowing conflict, social inequality and terrorism to flourish. In the chaos that follows his departure, civil war and regional interference plague the country while separatist groups, Al-Qaeda and ISIS compete to exploit the broken state. And yet, Yemen endures.
For those who know little about contemporary Yemen but want to learn, this book offers an accessible, thorough and often quite moving primer about the history, people and contemporary politics of that troubled country. Based on several years of research and reporting in the country, the book gives a deep narrative history of the developments that led to the present war. Amazingly, Hill also manages to do this by means of very compelling and sometimes even beautiful writing. She clearly writes out of a great love for Yemen and its people, which seems to be a theme with many Western writers who have spent an extended time living there.
Among other things I appreciated the access and introduction she gave to top Yemeni political figures, activists and militants, as well as the context that her reporting provides for understanding the roots of the current crisis. While it is an ancient country Yemen is a young state, and has been riven by internal conflicts since its formation. Reading the book it is easy to see how such a state could soon redivide along its traditional north-south divide. The simplistic sectarian narrative of the conflict is also debunked with even the most cursory knowledge of Yemeni history, given that the Saudis were supporting the Zaidi Shias (themselves theologically closer to Sunnis than their Iranian Shia counterparts) in their 1960s conflict against the Nasser-backed southerners. As Hill describes, the popular 2011 Arab Spring movement has now opened the door for a violent and intractable intra-elite conflict- a common theme in many of the revolutionary Arab countries.
I would classify this book as a must-read for anyone wanting to understand, let alone comment upon, the current war in Yemen. It is a shame that there are not more such books in English, particularly given how critical the politics of that country have become to the world at large. Reading it is a must for any introductory course of study on Yemen and to make sense of today's headlines.
I gave this 5 stars not only because I learned a lot about the politics of Yemen, but because the writing was a lot better than other books about Yemen that I've read.
This book is a comprehensive read on the political history of Yemen leading to the current sad state of civil war and famine there. By reading Ginny Hill's account you will understand the complicated relationships among internecine tribal factional wars and foreign exploitation of these divisions to pursue their own proxy agenda. The writing is excellent and engaging especially when the author inserts herself into interviews, meetings, and conferences to give the reader a first hand experience.
My problem with the book is that it is hard to keep track of the large array of characters, the factions, and their connection to the geography heaps ciao if you are a beginner not familiar with the region. She makes the typical mistake of over using acronyms which tend to get confusing when you have to keep. About 20 of then in your head. A glossary of acronyms, a comprehensive set of maps and photographs of the country and its geographical relationship to the Arab Peninsula, East Africa and the rest of the Middle East would go a long way. Most of all the book could be greatly improved with family trees or tribal genealogists of the major factions. I found myself spending more time keep track of the interplay of all these relationship than reading the narrative, making it a good but much longer read.
A very engaging and informative look at modern Yemeni politics, especially how it has evolved and devolved in the last two decades. The author combines on-the-ground reporting and interviews with detailed historical context, to make for a very colorful and readable and even suspenseful narrative. The book title is a bit misleading, however; there isn't much about the ongoing civil war, so much as an analysis of why the civil war started in the first place and the history of all the various factions. But nonetheless an excellent and essential read.
A history of modern Yemen, interspersed with the author’s first hand experiences of the country. Overall it’s informative, convincing and, at times, moving. The author conveys something of the complexity of the “illusory state” ruled by former President Saleh. One source describes Saleh as ruling through “TAPE B” proxies: tribes, army, political parties, extremists, and business leaders. Despite the dire situation of the current civil war, and the lack of an obvious way out, the author’s admiration of many of those she met gives the book a hopeful tone.
I thought that this book did a great job explaining the history of what led Yemen to where it is today and what exactly the history is, as well as testimonies from actual Yemenis who lived through and were directly involved in the conflict, as well as firsthand testimony of her experience in the country.
Ginny Hill's book provides a history of Yemen since independence, focusing mostly on the time since the early 2000s. The book is written almost as a journalistic account of the history, focusing on whoever the author was able to interview at each specific juncture. As such, it feels like more of a partial history of the country, rather than a historically informed analysis.
Ginny Hill’s Yemen Endures tells the story of state formation, fragmentation and the tangles of political power in Yemen. Taking her starting point as the 1962 revolution, Hill follows the rise to power of President Ali Abdullah Saleh though to the youth-led uprising in 2011 and the following transition attempts – and failures - to broker new power sharing agreements, taking in the struggles in the South and the conflicts in Saada along the way. Hill deftly navigates Yemen’s intricately structured, highly personalized power networks, pulling them apart to show the reader how they work and who is populating and manipulating them.
Combining interview material from her own time living and working in Yemen with some incredible individuals she’s found in the annals of history, Yemen Endures is told through the eyes of characters Hill is drawn to, but also many people who are clearly drawn to Hill. It should be noted that I am one of the latter – a keen reader will observe that my name appears a couple of times in the book. Inspired by her enthusiasm for the country, I helped set up the Yemen Forum policy network with Ginny at Chatham House in 2009, and the two of us have worked together and formed a strong friendship ever since. For me, reading Yemen Endures is like sitting with Ginny at a dinner table, soaking up her analysis of Yemen’s complex and layered politics over some salta or shafoot, with our Yemeni friends and colleagues chipping in with anecdotes tinged with black humor. Obviously, my review should be taken with all the bias that this entails.
Hill’s analysis is sharp and detailed, but her prose is clear, engaging and at times quite lyrical, making Yemen Endures a good read for both Yemen connoisseurs and Yemen novices. Her character portrayals are laced with comic touches – from fat Imams and shoeless presidents, to a British intelligence officer who peppered her Arabic radio broadcasts with flourishes of Wordsworth, a Yemeni Minister resembling the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland and some village elders who handle Ginny ‘like an expensive contraband product that could get everyone into trouble if something went wrong’ – that display a warmth for the country and it’s people. At the same time, underlying the detailed analysis of Yemen Endures is also a sense of collective trauma and a narrative of deep connections and loss, as things continue to worsen for the people she care about.
Hill gives equal weight in the book to her time spent with President Saleh as to her time spent with revolutionaries from Yemen’s change square, journalists jailed for their reporting, or exiled leaders from the south. These multiple, nuanced perspectives from players both inside and outside of Yemen’s networks of power are not only what makes this book come alive, but also betray the importance of relationship politics in Yemen. “This is how it is with the truth in Yemen,” explains Hill explains at the beginning of the book, “there are many versions of the same moment, and each of them is somehow valid. Eyewitnesses are universally inconsistent, but in Yemen truth is especially fluid. Yemen is a world of relationships, not institutions, and each version of events that is revealed to you depends on the speaker's assessment of your connections and suspected affiliations. People may take weeks, or months, to allow their deeper truths to emerge. " Ginny also positions herself as ‘the unreliable narrator’, pushing the reader to explore rather than accept her own written word: “I cannot be certain that I have eliminated all errors of perception on my part, not on theirs [interviewees]. As a result, what follows should be treated as informed comment; at the very least, it reveals my sources perceptions of the chief protagonists, of each other, and themselves at the time at which we spoke”
Another element that stands out from other non-fiction on Yemen is Hill’s insights into the internal politics of Saudi Arabia, the US and the UN, and how these have impacted on Yemen. Hill lays out some fairly hefty criticisms of international involvement in Yemen over the years, at times in her own narrative voice, at others giving platform to Yemeni voices expressing their concerns and also, at times, extremely prescient analysis. “I repeatedly raised questions about ‘risk mitigation’ and ‘contingency planning’,” says Ginny of her time spent with decision-makers in the international community ahead of the most current conflict in Yemen, “but it seemed there was no Plan B. The arrogance and apparent lack of foresight among some senior decision-makers, still riding on the success of negotiating the transition agreements and the completion of the National Dialogue, was staggering”. Hill appears saddened by how little Yemenis outside of Saleh’s networks have been listened to over the years, and how much might have been achieved, or at least avoided, if this had been different.
Very good survey of modern Yemeni political history. Hill's writing is most vibrant and instructive when she is recounting her on-the-ground experiences in Yemen. Her anecdotes from in-person interviews and travels around Yemen are riveting. By contrast, the last portion of the book, which analyzes the still-ongoing proxy, is written from Hill's perspective as a senior-level contractor in the international organization bureaucracy. Thus the final third of the book reads more like a think tank piece; Hill cites reports and quotes diplomats and politicians, but this critical portion of recent Yemeni history is less colorful due to Hill's distance from the events.
Still, "Yemen Endures" does an admirable job of making some sense of the impossibly intricate webs of Yemeni political and tribal power structures, which constantly shift and evolve based on regional and international events. For this, Hill should be commended.
Published in 2017, this book is of course missing the most recent chapters in Yemeni history. And, given the radical changes that continue to afflict the region, reality today is quite different than where Hill leaves us at the end of this volume. Readers should be aware of this. But this otherwise is a very solid primer on Yemen.