Dan Connell's Books

Against All Odds

A Chronicle Of The Eritrean Revolution

Against All Odds is a firsthand account of Eritrea's 30-year battle for independence from Ethiopia. Connell argues that the blending of a social revolution with political objectives enabled this self-reliant liberation front to weld Eritrea's diverse society into the base for a successful nationalist movement.
Rethinking Revolution

New Strategies for Democracy and Social Justice The Experiences of Eritrea, South Africa, Palestine & Nicaragua

Rethinking Revolution recounts the spirited debates among political activists over how to unify and transform their societies, focusing on how new social movements of women and workers are pushing progressive political parties to redefine the way they do politics. He concludes: “Democracy without justice is ritual without substance, but justice without democracy is charity, not change.”
Taking on the Superpowers

Collected Articles on the Eritrean Revolution (1976-1983), Vol. 1

This two-volume collection of Connell’s writings, spanning a quarter-century, recounts the experience of Eritrea’s protracted independence war and its postliberation transition to statehood. Taking on the Superpowers opens with Connell's first visit to Eritrea and ends with his journeys behind the lines after the Soviet intervention.
Building a New Nation

Collected Articles on the Eritrean Revolution (1984-2002), Vol. 2

This two-volume collection of Connell’s writings, spanning a quarter-century, recounts the experience of Eritrea’s protracted independence war and its postliberation transition to statehood.
Eritrea: A Country Handbook

This richly illustrated guidebook highlights Eritrea’s achievements and contains special sections on its history, its land and its people, the state, the economy, education and training, health and human services, culture and the arts, tourism, the media, civil society and the diaspora. Maps, charts and statistics provide details for each subject, along with more than 100 full-color photos.
Conversations with Eritrean Political Prisoners

Conversations reproduces interviews with five prominent critics of Eritrea's slide into one-party despotism—top government officials and liberation movement leaders—shortly before they disappeared into a secret prison. Since then, none has been seen, heard from or accounted for.
Women to Women

Young Americans in South Africa

In 27 stirring articles, Simmons College students cover issues ranging from how South African women fare today in the arts, politics and business to how they cope with and combat HIV/AIDS, homelessness, and rising domestic violence.
Old Wrongs, New Rights

Student Views of the New South Africa

Old Wrongs, New Rights offers a series of candid close-ups of South Africa's invigorating but unfinished journey from apartheid to democracy penned by students from Simmons College.
Historical Dictionary of Eritrea, 2nd ed.

This edition spans several millennia, but the main focus is the formation of the modern nation-state under a succession of colonial powers, its 30-year war for independence, and its emergence as a new country in the 1990s.
Historical Dictionary of Eritrea, 3rd ed.

The third edition has been expanded with new material on Eritrea’s 1998-2000 border war with Ethiopia, the 18-year “no-war, no-peace” impasse that followed it, the massive outflow of refugees that accompanied it, and the 2018 peace declaration that appeared to end it, as well as new developments in the country and the region.