Helen Lackner has spent the past four decades researching Yemen, and has worked in the country for fifteen years. She is a Research Associate at the London Middle East Institute at SOAS, University of London, and is currently the editor of the Journal of the British-Yemeni Society and is a regular contributor to Oxford Analytica's briefs and openDemocracy. Her works include Why Yemen Matters: A Society in Transition and Yemen and the Gulf States: The Making of a Crisis.
Comprehensive and in-depth, backed up by statistics and enriched with [Lackner's] own insights into the major political, social and economic transformations of half a century.' * The Jordan Times * An outstanding book that provides answers to all of the questions raised by Yemen's many crises since 2011. Written with compassion and insight, Lackner confirms her standing as the foremost authority on Yemeni politics at work today.' -- Eugene Rogan, University of Oxford An eminently valuable account of Yemen's modern history and current travails by someone who has made it her life's work to understand the country and its people.' -- Roger Owen, Harvard University 'A superb book written by an outstanding author whose knowledge of Yemen is unparalleled. She combines elegant writing with incisive and lucid analysis to reveal the political, economic and social causes of Yemen's instability and the origins of its current crisis. Both specialists and those new to the country will find this book an indispensable guide to understanding Yemen's profound and tragic problems - and what its future holds for its people, the region and internationally.' -- Dr Noel Brehony CMG, former Chairman British-Yemeni Society A matchless geo-political profile of the country, its history, its economic structures, and above all, its people.. She knows the country better than the gangs in Foggy Bottom and Whitehall, not to mention Mossad operatives or the other spooks of the 'international community' based in Riyadh. -- Tariq Ali * New Left Review * The United States is deeply engaged in this war. We are providing bombs the Saudi-led coalition is using, we are refuelling their planes before they drop those bombs, and we are assisting with intelligence. -- Bernie Sanders * New York Times op-ed * As soon as US-made bombs began exploding in Yemen, it became morally incumbent on Americans to understand what is really happening in this proud Arab nation now on the brink of collapse. Helen Lackner's comprehensive investigation into the history, present, and future of Yemen is the perfect place to begin. Brimming with erudition and rich in analysis, Yemen in Crisis offers invaluable insight to seasoned observers and newcomers to the region alike. -- Moustafa Bayoumi, author of How Does it Feel to Be a Problem? and This Muslim American Life Helen Lackner is arguably the best non-Yemeni expert of Yemen, a country where she first sojourned in the 1970s acquiring since then a unique and multifaceted expertise. This book is the best compact presentation of the background and dynamics of the social and political explosion that turned Yemen into the worst humanitarian crisis of today's world. -- Gilbert Achcar, author of The People Want and Morbid Symptoms This timely book analyzes the deep roots of the crisis that gripped Yemen even before the destructive war against it created the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Lackner is superbly equipped to trace the causes for the failure and collapse of the Yemeni state, under the inexorable pressures of neo-liberalism and regional and global rivalries. -- Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University