Yemen Endures: Civil War, Saudi Adventurism, and the Future of Arabia

A careful observer and skilled storyteller, Hill chronicles how the Middle East’s poorest nation endured both the 33-year regime of Pres. Ali Abdullah Saleh and the civil war that followed his 2012 departure. Hill, long familiar with Yemen as a freelance journalist and policy consultant, is well situated to cover these events. Protests during the Arab Spring, inspired by the successful ouster of Tunisia’s ruler, morphed in Yemen into a power struggle between various factions within the regime. Hill paints a pessimistic picture of Yemen’s future. If the hopes raised by the 2011 uprising for reform and legitimate government are not realized, then the “country will continue to fragment, and careen even further along the road to chaos.” The book’s principal strength lies in the interviews with politicians, rebels, activists, and foreign diplomats woven throughout the narrative. At times Hill’s writing style can be over-the-top: at one point she compares U.S. foreign policy to a “heavy juggernaut tearing down the highway on a dark, rainy night” and Yemen to “just another bit of slow-moving roadkill that was about to get caught in the wheels.” Nonetheless, her work, more descriptive than theoretical, will help explain a seemingly intractable problem to a nonacademic audience. [em](Sept.) [/em]