Yemen Chronicle: An Anthropology of War and Mediation
Steven Charles Caton, . . Hill & Wang, $26 (341pp) ISBN 978-0-8090-2725-5
The oral poetry of Yemeni tribesmen would seem an easy subject for a long, placid bout of scholarly research, but a crisis erupted during Caton's fieldwork in North Yemen, where he lived from 1979 to 1981, when a youth in his village abducted two young girls from a neighboring tribe. The kidnapping sparked a brief intertribal war with nationwide repercussions. The Yemenis hashed out the dispute in oral poetry recitations, and the author found in his arcane dissertation topic the perfect window onto the harsh cultural codes and byzantine politics of this fascinating society. A Harvard anthropologist, Caton (
Reviewed on: 07/25/2005
Genre: Nonfiction
Open Ebook - 352 pages - 978-1-4668-0773-0
Paperback - 352 pages - 978-0-8090-9882-8