Ron’s Reviews > I Didn't Do It for You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation > Status Update

Chapter 6: This is the story of the British period of rule, told through the story of expert rabble-rouser Sylvia Pankhurst. When the Brits took over Ethiopia, they cheerfully dismantled and confiscated the country's industrial hardware, using the familiar line of "they wouldn't know what to do with it." Miss Pankhurst spent decades exposing their acts to an apathetic British public.

Chapter 5: Here we turn our focus to Ethiopia, Eritrea's larger neighbor, and a legend stating that God Himself declared the Ethiopians to be His new chosen people. This readily lends itself to further claims that certain lands are theirs by divine right, for example that strip of land on the coast.

Chapter 3: Italy elects Benito Mussolini, who says the best way to pump up national spirit is to start a war abroad. He pours money into East Africa for a war against Haile Selassie (aka Ras Tafari). This leads to a building boom in Eritrea, but also brings in thousands of Italians who feel they deserve more respect from the locals. Italian Eritrea passes apartheid laws much like those later seen in South Africa.

Chapter 2: Italy, having just united under a common banner itself, joins the Scramble for Africa. They take a small territory on the Red Sea, but early leadership is more concerned with feathering their nests than with developing the colony. The King sends MP Ferdinando Martini to investigate, who basically says "I wish we'd never gone there, but the extermination is already underway. May as well see it through."

Foreword and Chapter 1: An introduction to Eritrea, a small country that split back off of Ethiopia in the early 1990s. In its early days, things seemed to be going well; Eritrea seemed to have avoided the ethnic infighting and totalitarian governments that characterize much of postcolonial Africa. It couldn't last though, and hopeful foreigners were left wondering if they'd ever really understood the place.