This book is the follow-up to an earlier volume by the same author (reviewed by Richard Reid in JMAS in 2009), and proclaims to offer ‘a detailed description of Eritrea post-war politics’ and to provide the ‘first comprehensive analysis of the country's economy’. The book fulfils neither of those objectives. What the author has produced is a highly moralistic volume that would better be entitled J'accuse!, a long-winded, 420 pages of densely formatted, text-long accusation against the Eritrean leadership in general, and the current head of state Isaias Afeworki in particular, that delivers the verdict guilty of tyranny.

This is not to deny that the current Eritrean polity is a highly authoritarian and securitised entity that denies its people basic freedoms and economic and human rights. But instead of making an effort to analyse why this rather sorry state of affairs came about, the book's narrative is largely based on sources that share the author's interpretation of the EPLF as guilty of ‘broken promises’, of having ‘frustrated’ the ‘expectations’ of Eritrean citizens, and ultimately of ‘betrayal’. Those who do not share this simplistic and moralist interpretation of Eritrea's recent history are accused of opportunism and careerism, and in logical consequence no reference is made to the considerable body of recent scholarship that provides a more nuanced and analytical view of Eritrea's political trajectory.

More broadly the book brings to the fore a wider problem with some of the scholarship on Eritrea. Often this is informed by either strong feelings of loyalty towards independent Eritrea or feelings of betrayal and disillusion, or one following the other. The latter is most prominent for example in the work of Dan Connell, a once enthusiastic supporter of the Eritrean cause turned one of its harshest critics, that is cited extensively by the author.

Taken in its entirety, this book is a wasted opportunity. It has brought together a wide range of data from different sources on issues such as the economic domination of the EPLF/PFDJ within the country, detailed human rights abuses, and the overall impediment of civil society in a broad sense. In addition the author has interviewed many people within different strands of Eritrean society over more than a decade and documented their often changing views on the country's development. A nuanced and critical analysis of those datasets, embedded in the circumstances in which they were produced, could have provided a novel and valuable contribution to Eritrean historiography partly based on oral history.

As it is this volume fails to critically engage with Eritrean post-liberation politics. It will be used by those who already agree with the author as proof, and will be condemned by those who see his account as misleading. Sadly, not least for the advancement of Eritrean historiography, the fact that this volume lacks any analytical rigour makes it very easy for Kibreab's work to be used in either way.