Book excerpt: Eritrea is located in northeast Africa on the Red Sea coast and boasts one of the oldest human settlements in the region. One-million-year-old human remains have been found in the Danakil Depression in the country, which is home to one of the oldest-written scripts in sub-Saharan Africa: Ge'ez. Eritrea was also pioneer in multi-party democracy in Africa and had a democratic constitution based on United Nations principles in 1952. But it is also home to one of the earliest armed liberation movements in Africa - a conflict that Mohamed Kheir Omer witnessed firsthand, having grown up in Eritrea as a member of the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF). In this book, he traces the history of the country, exploring how ethnicity, religion, geography, colonialism, and other factors have shaped its fate - and what must be done to ensure its people enjoy a brighter future. The history of Eritrea is similar to others on the continent, and its people continue to struggle to build a just, democratic, and inclusive country.