Product Description: By combining the views of anthropologists, political scientists and others, this book explores how the citizen populations of the Arab states of the Gulf define themselves in a wider context. The Gulf provides extreme examples, not only because these polities are so dependent on transnational flows of wealth and imagery, but because at home the citizen work-force is often out-numbered by migrant-labor...read more

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. The book is augmented by illustrations, maps and a detailed chronology. (view table of contents)

Product Description: The tradition of intensive fieldwork by a single anthropologist in one area has been challenged by new emphasis on studying historical patterns, wider regions, and global networks. Some anthropologists have started their careers from the new vantage point, amidst a chorus of claims for innovative methodologies...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Dresch here combines ethnography with history to describe the system of sedentary tribes in South Arabia--a strategically sensitive part of the world--over the past thousand years. He examines the values and traditions the tribal people bring to the contemporary world of nation-states, and discusses the relation of the major tribes to pre-modern Islamic learning, the Zaydi Imamate, ideas of contemporary statehood, and the area as a whole.