A History of Yemen

To the ancient Romans, it was Arabia Felix, Fortunate Arabia, a land of legendary wealth built on the global monopoly of frankincense and myrrh. For millennia, powerful kingdoms like Saba, the biblical Sheba, engineered wonders like the Great Dam of Marib and grew rich commanding the caravan routes that connected Africa and India with the Mediterranean. This book traces the epic, labyrinthine journey from that prosperous past to the headlines of the present day, which speak not of fortune, but of famine and the world's worst humanitarian crisis. It explores the dramatic geography of coastal plains, jagged highlands, and vast deserts that has forged distinct cultures and made Yemen a nation notoriously difficult to unite, while its strategic location at the crossroads of ancient seas has made it an irresistible prize for empires.

The narrative delves into the transformative arrival of Islam in the seventh century and the subsequent establishment of the unique Zaydi Imamate in the northern highlands—a religio-political entity that would endure for over a thousand years and shape one of the core identities of the nation. This is contrasted with the brilliant cultural flourishing of Sunni dynasties in the south, like the Rasulids, who presided over a golden age of science, art, and architecture fueled by the maritime trade of the Indian Ocean. This history of recurring tension between the Zaydi north and the Shafi'i south represents a critical fault line that continues to define the country's conflicts today.

The story then follows the arrival of powerful empires vying for control of Yemen's ports and trade routes. It details the two successive occupations by the Ottoman Empire and the fierce Yemeni resistance that eventually expelled them, forging a powerful sense of identity rooted in defiance of foreign rule. No sooner was one empire ejected than another arrived, with the British seizure of the port of Aden in 1839. This marked the beginning of a formal partition that would last for a century and a half, creating the distinct political entities of North Yemen under Ottoman and later independent rule, and South Yemen under the influence of the British Empire.

The tumultuous twentieth century saw these two Yemens follow radically different paths. The North became the isolated and conservative Mutawakkilite Kingdom, while the South evolved from a bustling British colony into the only Marxist state in the Arab world. The book chronicles the brutal civil wars, Cold War proxy conflicts, and tense border disputes that defined their relationship, all while the dream of a single Yemen never died. This dream was realized with the euphoric unification of 1990, but the merger of two such different states quickly soured, culminating in a bitter 1994 civil war that set the stage for the modern crises. The final chapters trace the unraveling of the unified state under President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the rise of Al-Qaeda, the emergence of the Houthi rebellion in the north and a secessionist movement in the south, and the 2011 Arab Spring uprising that finally tipped the nation into the devastating, multifaceted civil war that continues to this day.