Robert D. Kaplan is one of our leading international journalists, someone who can explain the most complicated and volatile regions and show why they’re relevant to our world. In Surrender or Starve, Kaplan illuminates the fault lines in the Horn of Africa, which is emerging as a crucial region for America’s ongoing war on terrorism. Reporting from Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea, Kaplan examines the factors behind the famine that ravaged the region in the 1980s, exploring the ethnic, religious, and class conflicts that are crucial for understanding the region today. He offers a new foreword and afterword that show how the nations have developed since the famine, and why this region will only grow more important to the United States. Wielding his trademark ability to blend on-the-ground reporting and cogent analysis, Robert D. Kaplan introduces us to a fascinating part of the world, one that it would behoove all of us to know more about.

I left home behind in search of a place to call home -- across several countries and continents. The book recounts my thoughts on the political and social situation in Eritrea and Africa as a whole; thoughts on travelling, life and death; stories of Eritrean refugees and other friends I made on the way; stories that seemed small at times but very much close to my heart. And then discovered a new dream - my new dream is to spend more time helping people, and it is perhaps the most glorifying, most fulfilling, most important of my dreams. It will require me to keep on trying--to learn to make a bigger difference in my life, in the lives of others, and in the world in general. I want to knock at the doorsteps of missions, the people and organizations who can use my help. I want to go where I am needed, and I will keep on trying. Our future depends on getting up and dusting ourselves off whenever we fall down. The future of the young and the old at home and abroad depends on those who want to make a difference. One's life can't be stalled simply because one is chased away from home.

Images of war, narratives of suffering and notions of ethnicity are intrinsically linked to Western perceptions of Africa. Filtered through a mostly international media the information of African wars is confined to narrow categories of explanation emerging from and adapted to a Western history and political culture. This book aims at reversing this process; to look at war and suffering from the point of view of those who fight it and suffer through it. In doing so it reveals that the simplistic models explaining contemporary wars in Africa which are reproduced in a Western discourse are basically false. This book examines the understanding of war and the impact of warfare on the formation and conceptualisation of identities in Ethiopia. Building on historical trajectories of enemy images, the recent Eritean-Ethiopian war (1998-2000) is used as an empirical backdrop to explore war's formative impact, by analysing politics of identity and shifting perceptions of enemies and allies.

This volume takes up the life story of the author from where the first volume culminated. Through historical and political analyses the author lays bare the hidden (and not so hidden) elements that have contributed to Eritrea s descent from a stellar model of democracy and progress to a tragic abyss of dictatorship and isolation. The narrative is at once a historical and biographical testament of a man who had been part of the freedom fight as well as of a process of constitution making that had earned the admiration of a wide variety of observers and commentators. Combined together with the first volume, the book is a must read for students of the history and politics of Eritrea and the Horn of Africa region. The title itself is an indication of the central theme of the book providing a clue of the basis for Eritrea s current predicament. Trust is a fundamental ingredient in human relations. People place trust in the government they elect expecting it to perform its duties according to the promises it makes and pursuant to the law. But promises and laws are frequently broken, which raises the issue of responsibility. That is why there are legal and constitutional requirements for accountability and transparency. The book s title and subtitle are indicative of the bitter disappointment of the Eritrean public whose government of former freedom fighters broke its promises. A ratified constitution has been shelved and frozen for over thirteen years and the country has been governed by one-man dictatorship contrary to all expectations, both domestic and international. In 1998, the country went through a devastating war with Ethiopia that took the lives of some one hundred thousand people. The two countries have yet to restore normal relations over a decade later. In Eritrea s case, the situation of no-peace-no-war has subjected hundreds of thousands of youth to an endless forced military service. This has led to a mass exodus of scores of thousands of them defecting to neighboring countries. This condition, together with the general dissatisfaction of the public has raised serious questions about the country s future. This is one of the various salient issues discussed in this volume. The second volume of Bereket Selassie s unforgettable memoirs, The Crown and the Pen, is an outstanding analysis of the descent of Eritrea into personal rule and dictatorship. This beautiful land along the Red Sea is aptly described as a wounded nation, for its once promising quest for freedom, lasting peace and material prosperity has been betrayed by the denial of democratic rights and liberties, the destruction of constitutional government, and the lack of an aggressive pursuit of regional integration and development in the Horn of Africa through pan-African solidarity. Those who have read the first volume of this book will continue to enjoy this rich narrative and the superb manner in which the author conveys it in writing. New readers have much to learn about Eritrea and postcolonial Africa. Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja Professor of African Studies University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Wounded Nation by Bereket Habte Selassie is a gripping and troubling account of post-liberation politics in Eritrea. The book is both a personal memoir and an analysis of how a country s fate and future can be put into serious jeopardy by actions of a single individual or a group of a few people. Volume 1 of Bereket s memoirs traced his life up to the time of Eritrea s liberation in 1991 and the euphoria of independence after thirty years of independence. Bereket who himself had been part of the liberation movement became Chair of the Constitutional Commission charged with the responsibility of writing a constitution for the newly liberated nation. Less than a decade after liberation, and only a few years after the adoption of the

This text presents contextual aspects in order to explain the growing discord between the two former friendly governments of Eritrea and Ethiopia. It looks at historical relations since the late 19th century, border issues from local perspectives and relations between the former liberation fronts.

War-time love story set in Abyssinia, Eritrea and the Yemen 1935-1945. Amedeo Guillet is still alive and living in County Meath, Ireland. Khadija is lost. This is the story of Amedeo Guillet -- an Italian calvary officer who was sent out to Abyssinia as part of Mussolini's army to establish and command a troupe of 2,000 Spahis -- or Arabic calvary. He met and fell in love with Khadija -- a beautiful Ethiopian Muslim. Together they held up the British lorries heaving up the mountain road to Asmara and blew up the important Ponte Aosta. Eventually captured, Amedeo went on the run disguised as an Arab, eventually making it to Yemen, only to be thrown in jail. This is a rare view of the Second World War from an Italian perpective; particularly valuable are the chapters that tell the story of Italian resistance to the Nazis, and their subsequent withdrawal from Italy in 1943. There are few stories more cinemagraphic than this -- Fascist Italy, his early years in Ethiopia commanding the Cossack-like Spahis, the brutal Abyssinian war waged by the Duce, Italian and British colonial rivalry; Amedeo led the last ever cavalry charge the British army faced (Eritrea 1941 -- they were massacred by tanks and sub-machine guns), defeat and guerrilla warfare against the British; then flight, disguised as an Arab, imprisonment in the Yemen and a great love lost as he leaves his beloved Khadija behind to face her future alone and returns to Italy, to his fiancee and a career as a distinguished Italian diplomat and Arabist. Amedeo is still alive and living in County Meath, Ireland. Sebastian O'Kelly is a journalist for the Mail and Telegraph and has Amedeo's full co-operation in writing this book. This is a very valuable and absolutely stunning story, beautifully told by O'Kelly.

The Horn of Africa has the highest endemism of any region in Africa, and around 70 species are found nowhere else in the world. Many of these are confined to the isolated highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea, but a large number of larks specialise in the arid parts of Somalia and adjoining eastern Ethiopia, whilst the island of Socotra has its own suite of endemic species. The region is also an important migration route and wintering site for many Palearctic birds. This is the first field guide to the birds of this fascinating region, and a companion to Birds of East Africa by two of the same authors. Over 200 magnificent plates by John Gale and Brian Small illustrate every species that has ever occurred in the five countries covered by the guide, and the succinct text covers the key identification criteria. Special attention is paid to the voices of the species, and over 1000 up-to-date colour distribution maps are included. This long-awaited guide is a much-needed addition to the literature on African birds and an essential companion for birders visiting the region.

The Northeastern African nation of Eritrea spent much of the early twentieth century as a colony of Italy, and more recently shook off another invader, Ethiopia. Its capital city, which dates back more than 700 years, exploded into life and growth with the arrival of Italian colonists in the 1930s, and then stagnated under Ethiopian rule. The surprising result is a living museum of Italian "Nuova Architettura," where decorative smokestacks tower over street markets and portholes look out onto bicycle traffic. Futuristic, monumentalist, rationalist and cubist work is not just preserved, but dominant on the skyline. Here, photographer Stefan Boness frames private, public and industrial buildings to incorporate their sometimes jarring contemporary African surroundings. He succeeds in conveying the unique atmosphere of a city where architectural time has, in some pockets, stood still. An essay on the city complements extensive illustrations.