Against All Odds is the firsthand account of Eritrea's epic 30-year struggle for political independence and social justice. With almost no outside support, Eritrean nationalists brought successive U.S.- and Soviet-backed Ethiopian governments to their knees. At the same time, they worked to liberate women, workers and peasant farmers from centuries of grinding poverty, chronic hunger and numbing oppression.

Connell argues that it was the blending of a social revolution with political objectives that enabled this uniquely self-reliant liberation front to weld Eritrea's fractious society - half Christian, half Muslim, from nine ethnic groups - into one of the most remarkable fighting forces in modern history. In a new Afterword, he describes their efforts to translate wartime values and experience into sustainable strategies for developing the new country.