The Eritrean Studies Review has become one of the premier journals for the discussion of scholarly issues on the Horn of Africa. The Review is a publication of the Eritrean Studies Association (ESA).

The contributed essays included in this issue are:

Defining Frontiers: Violence and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Eritrea
Richard Reid

Power Without Pashas: The Anatomy of Na'ib Au-tonomy in Ottoman Eritrea (17th-19th C.)
Jonathan Miran

The Strategic Position of Keren in the Massawa-Khassala Trade Route
Adhana Mengstaab

Italian Approaches to Economic Resources in the Red Sea Region
Massimo Zaccaria

Massawa under Khedive Ismail 1865-79
Ghada H. Talhami

Troops, Missionaries and an Anonymous Observer: A Presentation of an Evidentiary Document
Bairu Tafla

Some Aspects of Environmental History of Nineteenth-Century Eritrea: An Appraisal of the Historiographical Sources
Mussie Tesfagiorgis

The Beginnings of Western Education in Eritrea
Christine Smith-Simonsen

ABOUT THE EDITORS
BAIRU TAFLA is Professor in the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Hamburg University, Germany. He received his Dr.phil and Dr.habil from Hamburg University, and his M.A. from Howard University, Washington D.C. Select Publications: "Interdependence through Independence: The Challenges of Eritrean Historiography," in Harold G. Marcus (Ed.), New Trends in Ethiopian Studies, vol. I (Lawrenceville, N.J. 1994), pp. 497?514; “The Impact of Dogali on the International Policy of the Central European Powers," in Aethiopica, International Journal of Ethiopian Studies 5 (2002), pp. 102-24; “Eritrea in Retrospect: An Excerpt from the Memoirs of Fitawrari Mika’el Hasama Rakka,” in: Africa: Rivista trimestrale di studi e documentazione dell’Istituto italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente 60.1 (2005) pp. 1-64; (Jointly with Mrs. Eva Schmidt) "The Egyptian?Ethiopian War of 1875?76: The Austrian Perspective," in: Bibliotheca Nubica 3 (1992), pp. 115-150.

GEBRE H. TESFAGIORGIS is currently Director of Institutional Research at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa. He was a member of the Constitutional Commission of Eritrea. He is the Executive Editor of the Eritrean Studies Review