| | This is the first full length scholarly study of the long and violent political conflict that gave birth in 1993 to the youngest African state. There is no shortage of writings on this subject, written mostly for purposes of advocacy on both sides of the conflict. Being both an Eritrean and a political scientist, Ruth Iyob mixes empathy with the precision required of a social scientist. While sympathetic to the Eritrean cause, her work is devoted to analysis, not advocacy. It is an attempt, she says, 'to explain why Eritrean resistance endured in the face of Ethiopia's diplomatic, military and political prowess' (p.5). She begins by citing a different sort of resistance, that of various scholarly commentators who till the very end, and for a variety of proffered reasons, dismissed Eritrean nationalism with expert certainty. She also regards the colonial thesis advanced by the leading nationalist movement, the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF), and accepted by academic supporters of that movement, as misguided, because it clashed with the principle of territorial integrity in the post-colonial era and failed to gain acceptance by any state in Africa. |
