Ethiopia and Eritrea

Description

First published in 1953, this book deals with the last decade of the struggle to reunite Eritrea to the Ethiopian motherland from which it was torn by Italian conquest in the last quarter of the 19th century.

The liberation of ex-Italian Eritrea after seventy years of colonial rule, its federation to Ethiopia, and the restoration of untrammeled access to the sea for the Ethiopian people after more than four hundred years of land-locked isolation are well documented in this book.

Little understood outside the Ethiopian-Eritrean Federation, this book was written while the stories were recent and vivid in mind, and still in the realm of controversy and discussion.

While most African colonies began to agitate for independence after World War II, Ethiopia was faced with a different challenge. It had already acquired independence more than two millennia ago during the fourth century BC, but it was still the victim of colonial offenses â€” the most glaring of which is the loss of Eritrea to Italy.

This book is “the penultimate chapter” in Sylvia Pankhurst’s work on Ethiopia. It documents the political challenge of deciding the fate of Eritrea. Readers will be able to experience what life was like as the last vestiges of colonialism gave way to the era of Independence. Moreover, they will gain an understanding of how previous political decisions affect the region today.