That said, I must admit that there are few books on Yemen I can think of that would be useful additional reading for a younger audience. This, in itself, speaks well for the need the present volume fills for our nation's library shelves. Whenever an American or European encounters and writes about Yemen, the tendancy is to focus on the exotic. A great deal of controversy surrounds this crop. Although women chew qat, it is more prevalent among the men.
Many men spend a large portion of their income and a fair amount of their time chewing qat.
This habit used to be confined to the rich elite, but it became affordable to the rest of society when incomes rose. Because of the high local demand, a large number of farmers have converted their land to qat. This is a straightforward discussion that is reasonably accurate. And it was not just the rich who used to chew, as a visitor to cosmopolitan Aden earlier this century could well attest. If the author means that both are social in nature, I can see the point of a better worded comparison.