218 pp, 8vo (8 3/4" H), hard cover in dust jacket. ISBN 0208010386 "....a remarkable account of a bitter war fought in almost medieval conditions in a little-known country. It is also, inevitably, the story of a country forced by the necessities of its own warfare to advance with reckless speed into the twentieth century. Major O'Ballance is the best qualified historian, both from his long familiarity with the Middle East, and from his books on modern warfare and guerrilla fighting which h ave gained him such a wide reputation, to write this account - the only comprehensive one to date - of the Yemen War. He begins with the Yemen in 1948, a land as impenetrable as Tibet to the Western world, where the tyrannical Imam Yahya recei v e d c omplaints from his people on little bits on paper and decorated the wall of his capital with the heads of argumentative subjects; and he ends twenty years later with a Republican government in the same capital, using foreign aid to build ro ad s an d h ospitals, and keeping a precarious status quo with the help of tanks and aeroplanes. In between, we are given a fascinating and almost classic description of the meeting and struggle of two worlds: the world of the Imams who kept peace by t aki ng ho stages from each of the warring tribes and regarded motor cars with considerable distrust; and the world of the young officers trained abroad who found good military reasons for quoting Khrushchev, Nasser and Mao Tse-Tung in their succ ess ful eff orts to unseat a dynasty of kings. And the continuous self-seeking participation of Nasser and Faisal in this conflict, as Major O'Ballance is at pains to stress, highlights more cogently than ever the intricate web of suspicions and p reju dice s in whic h the nations of the Middle East find themselves struggling to coexist." Previous owner's small stamp on front pastedown, very light edge wear - mainly at top/bottom of spine. Dust jacket has minor edge wear/wrinkling, o ne ver y sma ll cl osed tear, minor soiling on rear panel. Very Good+/Very Good+

YEMEN IMAM AHMED UNITED NATIONS HARAD CONFERENCE ASSALLAL SIEGES