Until the last two decades, much of the scholarship on Yemen has often been characterized by a tendency, whether intentional or not, to emphasize the isolation of the country, its history, and its politics from global processes of imperial expansion, state formation, and capital accumulation. If Yemen's sui generis nature meant that it was the ideal field site for the study of unchanging tribal relations or Islamic textual traditions, it also meant that its history was characterized by absences—the absence of a strong state, civil society, national identity, and so on. It is refreshing then to read Asher Orkaby's account of the Yemeni Civil War of 1962–68, which proceeds with the assumption that the war must be understood in a broader context of international relations that can be reduced neither to Cold War rivalries nor to competition between Arab monarchies and their republican rivals, described most famously by Malcolm Kerr as the “Arab Cold War.” Orkaby instead argues that closer attention to the historical record “… reveals multiple layers of interactions, conflicts, and themes that are otherwise obscured by the dominance of US–USSR and Egypt–Saudi Arabia competition” (p. 5).

The book is arranged both chronologically and thematically. The early chapters chart the initial coup that brought to power the Yemeni free officers under the tepid leadership of ʿAbdullah Sallal and the early Egyptian, American, and Soviet responses. After charting the early recognition of the Yemeni Republic and the first Egyptian military victories following intervention in October 1962, the later chapters follow the tortuous path to the withdrawal of Egyptian forces in late 1967 after five years of devastating and inconclusive war. Although there is some detailed discussion of the war itself, Orkaby devotes greater attention to the international attempts to end the war, focusing on the UN observer mission that had the unenviable task of observing an Egyptian evacuation of troops that never happened, the clandestine Israeli effort to airlift weapons to the beleaguered royalist forces of Imam Badr, the international effort to draw attention to and halt the Egyptian use of chemical weapons against Yemeni military and civilian targets, and the struggle between the Egyptian and the British over the political fate of the occupied Yemeni south. A later chapter, discussing the curious exploits of an American adventurer, the International Red Cross, and Baptist missionaries, highlights the extent to which non-state actors used the context of the war to make inroads into the country. The book ends with an extended epilogue that draws parallels between the Yemeni Civil War and the current war that has continued unabated since 2015.

The book is well-researched and draws our attention to hitherto neglected moments of the civil war, such that it is a fitting companion to Jesse Ferris’ Nasser's Gamble: How Intervention in Yemen Caused the Six-Day War and the Decline of Egyptian Power (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012). In particular, the detailed accounts of the UN observer mission, the international debate over Nasser's use of chemical weapons, and the Israeli airlift do much to dispel the view that this conflict can be reduced to a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Even so, the argument that the opposing forces of “republicans” and “royalists” did not align with Cold War or intra-Arab ideologies and politics is in itself not necessarily a novel argument. Indeed, Paul Dresch has long insisted on the durability of tribal political and legal practice in the Yemeni north by which older forms of mediation continued without reference to the divisions between republicans and royalists. Without a doubt, Orkaby's work fruitfully complicates our understanding of the international context of the war by highlighting the often frustratingly ambiguous policies of the United States, the Soviet Union, Egypt, Israel, and even the United Nations. And the resulting picture is one in which governments crafted policies based on misunderstandings, insufficient information, and flawed decision making.

But while the book provides some fascinating new detail on the war and the various governmental and non-governmental actors who participated in it, it is sometimes difficult to disentangle the broader implications of the argument from the individual episodes that comprise the narrative. Indeed, some of the chapters seem oddly out of synch with the broader goals of the book. Chapter 7, for example, is ostensibly concerned with British support for mercenary operations in support of the Yemeni Royalists as a means of frustrating the Egyptian war effort and defending the British position in the Yemeni south. Yet, the discussion is introduced by a historical digression that suggests a long history of “Egyptian imperialism” in Yemen, beginning with the reign of Mehmed Ali Pasha. Why one should compare the expansionist policy of a 19th-century Ottoman provincial governor with the foreign policy of the modern Egyptian state under ʿAbd al-Nasir is never satisfactorily demonstrated, and it is difficult to ascertain why the comparison was made beyond the ahistorical assertion that Egypt has harbored a consistently aggressive policy toward Yemen, regardless of the particularities of the state governing it. Similarly, in Chapter 9, Orkaby narrates the peculiar events of Bruce Chalmers Condé’s emergence as a propagandist and stamp-designer for the Mutawakkilite Kingdom and James Young's efforts at establishing a Southern Baptist Missionary presence in Yemen by opening hospitals in a country in desperate need of modern medical care. The details are fascinating, no doubt, but one is left wondering about the significance of these episodes beyond the observation that individuals saw the war “as an opportunity to pursue their dreams in the remote deserts of Yemen” (p. 196).

Rather than a formal conclusion, Orkaby has opted for an epilogue that attempts to illustrate parallels between the Yemeni Civil War and the current war in Yemen, noting that “The Yemeni republic is again at war with northern tribesmen, and foreign powers are again intimately involved” (p. 207). The characterization of the current war in Yemen as a struggle between the Yemeni Republic and northern tribesmen or, as he later states, “tribal and religious alternatives” (in reference to the Huthi movement) suggests the limits of historical analogy (p. 211). In proposing that the current conflict represents a centuries old form of “regime change” (p. 214), the author implies that Yemeni politics can be reduced to an age-old conflict between state and tribe. To view the current conflict through this analytical lens is to ignore the diverse constellations of power that emerged during the Arab uprisings and the contested political process that resulted in the ultimately unsuccessful National Dialogue Conference of 2014. It is worth keeping in mind that the Southern Movement (al-Hirak) and countless civilian activists, who were so critical to the protests of 2011, were among the many parties either marginalized by the conference or disappointed in its outcomes. Neither of these constituencies fit comfortably in the analytical triad of tribe/state/religion, and it is worth asking, therefore, if there are not better lessons to be drawn from this historical comparison.

Nonetheless, Orkaby has succeeded in producing a well-researched study that pushes us to think more carefully about whether the Yemen Civil War, and possibly any civil war, can be considered solely within a national framework. If the current war in Yemen is any indication, the answer would have to be in the negative.