Reviews for Brothers at War: Making Sense of the Eritrean-Ethiopian War

The average rating for Brothers at War: Making Sense of the Eritrean-Ethiopian War based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-04-23 00:00:00 Richard McClellan This is an amazing little book. OK, look: this topic is not something most people are going to pick up and just run with. But IF you are interested in origins of the 1998-1999 Ethio-Eritrean War, and IF you can handle some very detailed and well researched study on the subject…THEN this is the book for you. In fact, it is the only book of its specific kind I know of. Tekeste Negash and Kjetil Tronvoll have taken great pains to hammer out a readable analysis of a situation which is, quite frankly, seemingly unintelligible (to the uninitiated-which is anyone not steeped in the history of the Horn). The authors take a rather straightforward chronological examination based upon documentary evidence and an amalgamated socio-cultural understanding of the belligerents to answer their core question: Why did Ethiopia and Eritrea fight this war? Again, for those really wanting to get into esoteric, yet prescient, subjects like the appointing of Susan Rice as the head of delegation to negotiate the peace agreement in 1999, this book is very helpful. Unfortunately, the underlying complexities and deep ethnic identities and traditions of violence in this region mean to me that this book is a vast oversimplification of the subject matter. This is my principle issue with this book: there are many more levels behind that conflict, which continue today. For those really wanting to get deep into this material, I would recommend Richard Reid's "Frontiers of Violence in North-East Africa," Tsehai Berhane-Selassie's truly fantastic "Ethiopian Warriorhood," and Aregawi Berhe's "A Political History of the Tigray People's Liberation Front." And there are many more great works out there on Ethiopia and Eritrea in the 20th Century. That said, "Brothers at War" is definitely a great start into exploring the Ethio-Eritrean War of 1998-99 and I must admit I find their conclusion'even more so in light of recent events and the current détente between Ethiopia and Eritrea'immensely fascinating and even a bit troubling: "Eritrea hopes to achieve peaceful coexistence once TPLF is either defeated by the EPLF or by the combined forces of Oromo, Amhara, Somali, and other disgruntled groups in the country. Likewise, the EPRDF government in Addis Ababa and TPLF in Tigray are eager to assist the Eritrean people to form a government that would suit both Addis Ababa and Tigray…. The war of destabilization that each is waging against the other is unlikely to result in the defeat of either of the core armies." If that piques your curiosity…then you should probably read this book.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-09-11 00:00:00 Ronald Walker Nice book