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The Eritrean Struggle for Independence: Domination, Resistance, Nationalism, 1941-1993. By Ruth Iyob. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 198p. $49.95.
Edmond J. Keller, University of California, Los Angeles
The aims of this book are threefold: (1) to understand why the former Italian colony of Eritrea was denied its right to self-determination at a time when most European colonies in Africa were securing their independence; (2) to understand the strategy employed by imperial Ethiopia to have its claims to Eritrea recognized and upheld in the international community, and how Eritrean nationalists responded to the hegemonic project of the imperial state; and (3) to disentangle the process by which the Eritrean movement for national liberation was formed, how it developed, and how it ultimately emerged victorious against Ethiopia.
The book is divided into two parts. The first, borrowing from the international relations literature on regional hegemony, sketches the author's framework for analysis. In the second part of the book Iyob concentrates on the dynamic of the organizational construction of the main Eritrean nationalist movements between the 1940s and 1980s, cogently discussing why the various movements that took up armed struggle were able to form a united front that successfully threw off the yoke of Ethiopian domination.
Part I begins with a brief review of the relevant literature on Ethiopia-Eritrea relations. Iyob's intention is not to write yet another work that seeks to correct previous historical inaccuracies; instead, she is more concerned with situating her own work within the context of the extant literature. She divides that literature into two main schools. The first subscribes to a "Greater Ethiopia" thesis, which holds that Eritrea is a part of historic Ethiopia...