Originally published in 1966 this study gives a detailed account of all aspects of Gurage life. An introductory chapter on South-West Ethiopia and the history of the area is followed by descriptions of Gurage settlements, ensete (banana-like plants) cultivation, kinship and marriage, the political system and religious organization. The author's fieldwork and discussions with many resident and migrant Gurage in Addis Ababa enabled him to provide a valuable account of a hitherto little known people and ethnographic area.

Matakkal is a large region in Northwest Ethiopia along the Sudanese border. In former times it comprised nearly half of Goggam, although not counting more than 250.000 Inhabitants, who belonged to different ethnical groups. Members from all four Ethiopian language families (Semitic, Kushitic, Omotic, and Nilo-Saharian) inhabit the area. Matakkal represents thus from ethno-linguistic view a pattern of Ethiopia. The special ethnical variety of this region goes back to demographic and political changes in the Horn of Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 16th century large subpopulations came into the region and led to an ethnical enriching. While Oromo, Sinasa and Agaw assimilated in most areas of Goggam to the dominant Amharic speaking population, in Matakkal the same subpopulations retained their ethnical identity to a large extent. The investigation is based on interviews with informants and fi eld research, as well as on documents and archives. The study is an interdisciplinary work, which combines history, anthropology and peace research. It deals with cultures and history of the peoples in the border area between Ethiopia and the Sudan from the last decade of the 19th century up to the end of the Ethiopian Revolution in 1991.

This study inquires into whether the regional states are discharging their constitutional obligation of creating adequately empowered local government. It will attempt to do so by examining the decentralisation programme of four of the nine regional states of the Ethiopian federation.

In this exciting new study, Bahru Zewde, one of the foremost historians of modern Ethiopia, has constructed a collective biography of a remarkable group of men and women in a formative period of their country’s history. Ethiopia’s political independence at the end of the nineteenth century put this new African state in a position to determine its own levels of engagement with the West. Ethiopians went to study in universities around the world. They returned with the skills of their education acquired in Europe and America, and at home began to lay the foundations of a new literature and political philosophy. Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia describes the role of these men and women of ideas in the social and political transformation of the young nation and later in the administration of Haile Selassie.

To find more information on Rowman & Littlefield titles, please visit us at www.rowmanlittlefield.com.