Yemen's History of Resisting Empire w/Isa Blumi, P. 1

Aug 12, 2025

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In this first part of a two part series, Adnan has an epic conversation with Dr. Isa Blumi, historian and Professor of Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies at Stockholm University, about Yemen's modern history of resisting colonialism geopolitically and global capitalism. Author of Destroying Yemen: What Chaos in Arabia Tells Us about the World, Dr. Blumi masterfully analyzes and integrates the geographic, social, economic, cultural, political and religious dimensions of Yemen's distinctive historical experience. If you want to understand why Ansarullah as a popular movement has taken leadership of active solidarity with the people of Gaza in confronting ZioAmerican empire, this episode will be indispensable.

To consult more of Dr. Isa Blumi's recent work on Yemen and the Gulf region:

Blumi, Isa. Destroying Yemen: What chaos in Arabia tells us about the world. Univ of California Press, 2018.

Blumi, Isa. Chaos in Yemen: Societal collapse and the new authoritarianism. Routledge, 2010.

Blumi, Isa. "The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)." In Government and Politics of the Contemporary Middle East, pp. 545-652. Routledge, 2023.

Blumi, Isa, and Jaafar Alloul. "Guest-Editors' Introduction: Re-Worlding the Gulf: Anomaly as Geopolitical Function." Middle East Critique 34, no. 2 (2025): 181-202.

Blumi, Isa. "Imperial Equivocations Britain's Temperamental Mobilization of the Caliphate, 1912-1924." Rivista italiana di storia internazionale 4, no. 1 (2021): 149-173.

Blumi, Isa. "Iraqi ties to Yemen's demise: Complicating the 'Arab Cold War'in South Arabia." Journal of Contemporary Iraq & the Arab World 16, no. 3 (2022): 235-254.

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