Paul Dresch here combines ethnography with history to describe the system of sedentary tribes in South Arabia—a strategically sensitive part of the world—over the past thousand years. He examines the values and traditions the tribal people bring to the contemporary world of nation-states, and discusses the relation of the major tribes to pre-modern Islamic learning, the Zaydi Imamate, ideas of contemporary statehood, and the area as a whole. Dresch's unique and provocative insights are of increasing value given the increased Western involvement with Yemen since 1989, the union of the two Yemens in 1990, and the country's first free election in 1993.