Destroying Yemen Paperback / softback - 2018

"This is one of the best books I have read in recent years, and for sure the best on the Middle East. Bar none. It is a provocative yet also carefully argued criticism of development, democratization, and nation-building. Sifting through a great deal of materials in an accessible style, Isa Blumi presents a bold revisioning of the past one hundred years in the Persian Gulf. This is the first book on Yemen that people not interested in the Middle East are likely to read. A blockbuster of a book that makes us all think harder."--Robert Vitalis, author of White World Order, Black Power Politics and America's Kingdom
"This is the book that will put Yemen on the map and get it out of its ghetto. It presents a distinctively hard-hitting interpretation of recent developments in Yemen, in all their tragedy, while also linking them to the earlier twentieth century in a manner that is striking, bold, and inventive. Isa Blumi shows how the components of U.S.-led imperialism in the form of the development industry, international financial policy, the military-industrial complex, and the oil-dollar nexus have devastated a once agrarian society of great historical depth and ecological skill. Engaging and fast-paced, while bringing together a remarkable range of source material, this is the book for journalists and general readers interested in the Middle East and the wider world today."--Martha Mundy, author of Domestic Government: Kinship, Community, and Polity in North Yemen

"Isa Blumi has written the best book that we have on Yemen. It oscillates between Yemen's history and its present, offering a well-written narrative of the devastation wrought against the Yemeni people. Between its graves and the sad eyes of its children, Yemen holds on. Blumi's book turns our eyes to the people and helps us grasp their story."--Vijay Prashad, author of The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution