This is a useful analysis … As an accessible primer to the recent history of Eritrea and its political backdrop, this is a concise and helpful book.

Liberation

Engaging, powerful, and urgently relevant. A meticulously researched and unflinchingly critical investigation, Eritrea's Gold Rush reveals the intricate web of actors enabling authoritarianism through resource extraction. An essential contribution to the study of global political economy and state violence. Unputdownable and unforgettable. Eritrea's Gold Rush uncovers the dark underbelly of the international gold mining industry-and how it helps sustain one of the world's most brutal regimes. With the pace of a thriller and the depth of investigative journalism, this urgent and meticulously researched book reveals how mining giants, diplomats, lobbyists, and warlords converge in a high-stakes game for control of Eritrea's vast mineral wealth. With vivid detail and compelling narrative, the book draws striking connections between a cast of enablers-from the UN Secretary-General to African warlords, ruthless Canadian mining executives, Chinese investors, and academics-turned-lobbyists-all playing roles in whitewashing and shielding one of the world's most repressive governments for the sake of profit. Unflinching and illuminating, Eritrea's Gold Rush is a damning portrait of how global greed perpetuates oppression-and why no one, in the end, remains untouched.

Kjetil Tronvoll, professor of conflict and peace studies, Oslo New University, Norway

A timely and incisive work, this groundbreaking volume deftly explores the interconnection between extractive industries, and geopolitical turbulence and violence in the Horn of Africa. Charlotte Touati offers a compelling, historically grounded analysis that illuminates the global stakes-from resource politics to monetary realignments-reshaping power dynamics and state behaviors in this critical region.

Teklehaymanot Weldemichel, lecturer, University of Manchester, UK