Violence Against Women in Peace and War: Cases from the Middle East explores violence against women in the Middle East. Through a narrative research approach, Maria Holt compares a range of settings and experiences, arguing that (1) violence against women tends to increase during periods of conflict; (2) such practices are legitimized by an already existing environment in which violence against women is tolerated; (3) women are building strategies, both at local and regional levels, to combat and eliminate violence, thus enabling them to play a more constructive role in processes of conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction; and (4) the greater the commitment by public authorities to creating sound local frameworks to address violence against women the stronger will be Arab women's ability to resist conflict.

"So we left without glory but without disaster" - Sir Humphrey Trevelyan, the last High Commissioner of the Federation of South Arabia

In 1967, 139 years after their arrival in Aden, the British withdrew from the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Their departure was abrupt, messy and controversial. Using important, previously unpublished material and original interviews with a range of individuals, both British and Yemeni, who lived through this defining period of colonial history, Without Glory in Arabia tells the story of the final few years of British rule in Aden and the neighboring Eastern and Western Aden Protectorates. While some view British rule, on the whole, as beneficial to the local population, others insist that very little was achieved. Worse, Britain did not provide a structure of government constitution which met the conflicting needs of Aden and the Protectorate. This illuminating book brilliantly sets the "scuttle" - as the episode came to be known - in context with a thorough re-examination of the background against which the events of the 1960s unfolded in this obscure backwater of the British Empire.