Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Book review - "Aden Insurgency: The Savage War in Yemen 1962-67" by Jonathan Walker

Very good book about a little known colonial campaign - the battle in South Arabia where the British took on the locals and eventually left their old colony of Aden, which could have been the Hong Kong of the Middle East but instead became a backwater.

Walker has done his research and is a good writer, thorough and clear. It's kind of a depressing book in which no one seems to have covered themselves in glory - the foreign office who came up with messy ideas, the strategists, the local politicians, the British politicians, local soldiers.

It does lack colourful characters - the fault of history rather than Walker - though it was the bagpipe playing Major who came in and kicked butt towards the end.

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