Richard Reid is lecturer in the History of Africa in the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He taught for several years at the University of Asmara in Eritrea and has also taught at Durham University. He is the author of Political Power in Pre Colonial Buganda (Oxford, 2002) and War in Pre-Colonial Eastern Africa (Oxford, 2007). He was guest editor of a special volume of the Journal of Eastern African Studies in 2007, dealing with identities in east and northeast Africa. He is also the author of several articles on modern Eritrea and Ethiopia, dealing particularly with the liberation struggle, the 1998-2000 war, and the current political situation.