Tronvoll's book is an uncommonly rich text that offers answers to many enduring questions, in particular why and how Ethiopians and Eritreans have waged war against each other so very recently after fighting side-by-side successfully to overthrow the Derg regime. The book contributes much to our understanding of the history and politics of Ethiopia, processes which Tronvoll himself argues are sometimes not coherent. It is to his credit that he manages to uncover patterns that exist in these complex, multilayered, fragmentary and often contradictory processes. In doing so, he describes how decisions have been made, how these have been received, and explores the legitimacy and otherwise of different actors and actions.

This is a book about war and about the way it is experienced, thought about and understood on the ground. It explores the impact of war on the formation and conceptualisation of identities, which in turn feed back into the nature of war itself. The heavy impact of war on the people is evident, and yet there is no pathos or sentimentalism here. The key questions and organising metaphors of the book are ‘Who is the enemy?’ and ‘How are enemies made?’ These allow Tronvoll to illustrate the ways in which the identification of the stereotyped and stigmatised ‘other’ constantly shifts and inverts, as does the construction of allies, friends and ‘brothers’.

The book is exceptionally powerful and impressive for many reasons. First is the depth of the knowledge of the author and his first-hand fieldwork and interviews. His account and analysis of Ethiopian (and to some extent Eritrean) politics over the last twenty years or so is based in the words of people directly involved. The reflections Tronvoll relays come from a wide range of people: women who run coffee houses, ex-fighters, old men and women (some of whom have sent children to the war front), young conscripts, and also key political actors in the processes. Tronvoll has interviewed leaders from different sides of the political spectrum: key members of the TPLF (Tigrayan People's Liberation Front), as well as opposition leaders such as representatives of the OLF (Oromo Liberation Front) and the Hadiya National Democratic Organisation (HNDO). The interviews with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi are particularly fascinating, and contribute more generally to a portrait of political processes which are more commonly kept behind closed doors. This first-hand and rich ethnography is contextualised within a very useful and clear presentation of historical debates about Ethiopian identities, history and nationalisms.

Second, Tronvoll's political anthropology of identities in Ethiopia offers a fascinating exploration of the connections between the ‘official rhetoric and everyday poetics’ of war (p. 99). The use of songs and poetry provides a particularly effective lens through which to explore the ways in which meanings are created on the ground, and how military and political matters become intertwined with cultural processes of romanticising heroes, demonising enemies, and constructing memories. Here Tronvoll discusses ‘traditional sentiments’ and metaphors, for example, Tigrayan notions of courage and revenge, and explores how they feed into the conflict process. These arguments bring to mind approaches that are sometimes referred to as culturalist, which are often critiqued for essentialising different identity groups and leading to fatalistic explanations of the origins of war. But Tronvoll's emphasis is also on the significance of discourses that arise in times of conflict, and the ways in which they produce and reproduce essentialised notions of identity; using songs and poetry and other texts (such as interviews), he demonstrates how metaphors, principles, sentiments and memories are produced, reproduced, performed and reworked over time. Personal experiences of violence also feed into the ways in which identities are constructed. Finally, he emphasises that the larger collective identities of groups such as ‘the Tigray’, ‘the Amhara’ and ‘the Oromo’ are internally heterogeneous, and how identifications related to region, class or political identity may be additionally important. However, ethnic categorisation in Ethiopia emerges as the most prevalent form of identification at present, owing to the current government's ethnic federalisation programme. Here, the book shows clearly through empirical data that the increased salience of ethnicity as a category for organising action, thought and relations to others is historically and politically produced, rather than ‘natural’. Within the group, what it means to be of a particular ethnic identity also means different things to different people.

Overall, this book does much more than highlight processes of identification and enemy-making in times of conflict. It is a bold and, towards the end, sometimes provocative account which sheds light on Ethiopian history and contemporary politics. It illuminates the impact of the ethnic federalisation programme, human rights issues and electoral practices. Anyone new to Ethiopia who wishes to understand the multilayered and complex nature of social relations and politics would find much to inform them in this book. Equally, others with more experience of understanding Ethiopian history and politics will also find here a refreshing account, steeped in ethnographic detail and in the voices and analyses of Ethiopian (particularly Tigrayan) leaders and ‘peasants’ alike.