Shallow Graves: A Memoir of the Ethiopia-Eritrea WarThis is a personal account of the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia, fought between May 1998 and June 2000, as well as of the periods immediately preceding and following the conflict. Shallow Graves traces shifting local perceptions of time, the nation and the region, beginning in the mid-1990s and concluding with the peace agreement signed between the two governments in 2018. Richard Reid is a historian who was based in Eritrea during the war, and who continued to visit both that country and Ethiopia for several years afterwards. This personal perspective offers a more vivid, intimate portrait of the experience of the war than can normally be offered by putatively "objective" academic accounts. As well as providing first-hand reportage and analysis, Reid problematises the role of the historian--and specifically the foreign historian--as the supposedly impartial observer of events. His eloquent narrative, constructed around conversations and interactions with a range of local witnesses, friends and colleagues, explores the impact of prolonged war and its aftermath--both on private and public memory, and on the nature of history itself. |
Contents
1 Children of the Sixties 1 | 1 |
2 Fragments of a War | 47 |
3 Dreams of Abyssinia | 75 |
4 The Emperor | 99 |
5 Children of the Sixties 2 | 127 |
6 The Upside Down | 157 |
7 Moving Time | 175 |
Postscript | 197 |
A Bibliographical Note | 211 |
Notes | 215 |
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Common terms and phrases
Abyssinia Addis Adi Begio Adi Quala Afabet Amanuel Ameches Amhara armed struggle Assab Badme become border camp ceasefire certainly colonial conflict Connell course culture Danny dead deported Derg emotional EPLF EPLF fighters EPRDF Eritrea and Ethiopia Eritrean army Eritrean soldiers Ermias Ethiopian army everything ex-fighters feel ferenji fighting Habesha Haile Selassie happen haunted highland historians Horn of Africa increasingly independence Isaias Afewerki Italian journalists kind later leaders leadership Liberation Front liberation struggle lives London look Massawa Medhanie Meles memory ment military modern move Nakfa narrative national service never officers Oromo past patriotism peace Perhaps PFDJ political President problem regime region revolution Ryszard Kapuściński says seems senior sense Shaabiyya Somalia story Sudan talk tells Tesfai Tessenei things Tigray Tigrayans Tigrinya tion tory TPLF Tsorona University of Asmara village violence warsai wonder Woyane young