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About Yemen
Product Description A country long regarded by classical geographers as a fabulous land where flying serpents guarded sacred incense groves, while medieval Arab visitors told tales of disappearing islands and menstruating mountains. Our current ideas of this country at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula have been hijacked by images of the terrorist strongholds, drone attacks, and diplomatic tensions. But, as Mackintosh-Smith reminds us in this newly updated book, there is another Arabia. Yemen may be a part of Arabia, but it is like no place on earth. Amazon.com Review Englishman Tim Mackintosh-Smith was studying Arabic at Oxford when he visited Yemen, a forgotten country at the heel of the Arabian peninsula, and became obsessed with the place and its language. He's lived there since 1982, and this book--marketed as travel writing but more a blend of personal memoir and national history--is the result. There are certainly travel episodes, such as a trip to the remote island of Susqatra where the Gulf of Aden meets the Indian Ocean. Yet Yemen is more the product of a man gone native than a visitor with an itinerary. Indeed, Mackintosh-Smith offers a forthright defense of the country's lotus-like drug culture, which centers on qat, a leaf that produces a narcotic effect when chewed. "We qat chewers, if we are to believe everything that is said about us, are at best profligates, at worst irretrievable sinners," he writes. Although international health officials have warned against the drug, Mackintosh-Smith assures us this is all "quasi-scientific poppycock." The leaf, he says, helps its users to "think, work, and study." Yemen is surely an exotic land, and one of its charms--fully revealed in Mackintosh-Smith's digressive prose--is the way it has remained quaintly Arabic and seemingly immune to the modern forces transforming its neighbors. Well-received upon its initial publication in the United Kingdom, Yemen may come to be recognized as a small classic. --John J. Miller From Publishers Weekly Against the advice of his Arabic teacher ("Why don't you go somewhere respectable?"), Mackintosh-Smith decided to go to Yemen in 1982 and has "been there ever since." As a result, this is no ordinary travelogue, but an impressionistic exploration of a non-Western land by an experienced observer. A latter-day Lawrence of Arabia without the military exploits, the author has taken up many of the customs of his adoptive land: he's become addicted to qat, a plant that is chewed, often in groups, for its calming effects. The book, a bestseller in Britain, takes the reader on Mackintosh-Smith's travels throughout this south Arabian land, introducing the reader to both wizened Yemenis and the perils of roughing it--even in the late 20th century--throughout a mainly unexplored land. Sleepless nights on rocky inclines mix with desert heat and scorpions on one trip through the countryside, while an odd visit to a Yemeni dancing club highlights his trip to the city of Aden. An engaging writer with a journalist's eye for detail, Mackintosh-Smith never loses his sense of humor: his description of his visit to an English class, where the teacher asks the students, "How many noses does Professor Tim have?" is sidesplitting. The book offers an opportunity for dedicated armchair travelers to delight in a land few Westerners will actually visit. One warning: the author intersperses some history and politics among his travels, but the lay reader is advised to keep a reference source handy. Etchings by Martin Yeoman. (Jan.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Mackintosh-Smith's book is a strange hybrid. On one hand, it is a travelogue, filled with descriptions of magnificent landscapes, stunning cities, and personal stories of the author's experiences. It is also a history book, albeit not a chronological one because Mackintosh-Smith jumps from time period to time period as his travels bring him to places of his
