The author, a former member of the Ethiopian intelligentsia, presents a probing mirror-image analysis of the postwar years and the revolutionary upheavals during the past decades. The work includes his reminiscences of personal audiences with Emperor Haile Selassie, as well as interviews of some key political personalities. (African History)

In the second half of the 1960s and the early 1970s, the Ethiopian student movement emerged from rather innocuous beginnings to become the major opposition force against the imperial regime in Ethiopia, contributing perhaps more than any other factor to the eruption of the 1974 revolution, a revolution that brought about not only the end of the long reign of Emperor Haile Sellassie, but also a dynasty of exceptional longevity. The student movement would be of fundamental importance in the shaping of the future Ethiopia, instrumental in both its political and social development. Bahru Zewde, himself one of the students involved in the uprising, draws on interviews with former student leaders and activists, as well as documentary sources, to describe the steady radicalisation of the movement, characterised particularly after 1965 by annual demonstrations against the regime and culminating in the ascendancy of Marxism-Leninism by the early 1970s. Almost in tandem with the global student movement, the year 1969 marked the climax of student opposition to the imperial regime, both at home and abroad. It was also in that year that students broached what came to be famously known as the "national question", ultimately resulting in the adoption in 1971of the Leninist/Stalinist principle of self-determination up to and including secession. On the eve of the revolution, the student movement abroad split into two rival factions; a split that was ultimately to lead to the liquidation of both and the consolidation of military dictatorship as well as the emergence of the ethno-nationalist agenda as the only viable alternative to the military regime. Bahru Zewde is Emeritus Professor of History at Addis Ababa University and Vice President of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences. He has authored many books and articles, notably A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855-1974 and Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia: The Reformist Intellectuals of the Early Twentieth Century. Finalist for the Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize to the author of the best book on East African Studies, 2015. Ethiopia: Addis Ababa University Press (paperback)

A general introduction to Ethiopia and, to smaller exttent, Eritrea.

This book examines the process and events surrounding the migration of African scholars, as well as their lives and lived experiences within and outside of their colleges and universities. The chapters chronicle the lived-experiences and observations of African scholars in North America and examine a range of issues, ideas, and phenomena within North American colleges and universities. The contributors examine the political, ethnic, or religious upheavals that informed their migration or banishment; contrast the teaching-learning-research environment in Africa and North America; and discuss on and off-campus experience with segregation and racial inequality. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of the African Diaspora, migration, and African Studies.

A provocative investigation into the root causes of the Ethiopian political upheavals in the second half of the twentieth century. During the 1960s and early 1970s, a majority of Ethiopian students and intellectuals adopted a Marxist-Leninist ideology with fanatic fervor. The leading force in an uprising against the imperial regime of Emperor Haile Selassie, they played a decisive role in the rise of a Leninist military regime. In this original study, Messay Kebede examines the sociopolitical and cultural factors that contributed to the radicalization of the educated elite in Ethiopia, and how this phenomenon contributed to the country's uninterrupted political crises and economic setbacks since the Revolution of 1974. Offering a unique, insider's perspective garnered from his direct participation in thestudent movement, the author emphasizes the role of the Western education system in the progressive radicalization of students and assesses the impact of Western education on traditional cultures. The most comprehensive study of the role of students in modern Ethiopian political history to date, Radicalism and Cultural Dislocation in Ethiopia, 1960-1974 opens the door for discussion and debate on the issue of African modernization and the effects ofcultural colonization. Messay Kebede is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Dayton and is author of Survival and Modernization -- Ethiopia's Enigmatic Present: A Philosophical Discourse [1999].

Revolutionary Struggles and Girls' Education: At the Frontiers of Gender Norms in North-Ethiopia argues that at the base of girls’ poorer performance than boys at secondary school level when puberty has set in, is the “symbolic violence” entailed in sanctioned femaleness. Informed by the modesty of Virgin Mary in Orthodox Christian veneration, it instructs girls to internalize a “holding back” which impinges on her self-efficacy and ability to be an active learner. Neoliberally-informed educational policies and plans which have co-opted liberal feminism also in Ethiopia, do not address “hard-lived” gender norms and the power and domination dynamics entailed when parity between boys and girls in school continues to be the dominant measure for equity. Despite women’s courageous contribution at a literal “frontier” during the Tigrayan liberation struggle (1975-91) where they fought on equal terms with men, and despite the tendency that girls’ outnumber boys at secondary level in the present context, sanctioned femaleness constitutes a “frontier” for girls’ educational success and transition to higher education. In fact, when teaching-learning continues to be based on memorization rather than critical thinking, the very transformative potential of education is undermined - also in a gendered sense.

Little Ethiopia of the Pacific Northwest tells the story of the Ethiopian community in Seattle. The community began with approximately two dozen college students who came to the city during the Ethiopian revolution of 1974. These sojourning students earned college and university degrees, but were unable to return home to use them to modernize the developing nation. These stranded students became pioneers who built a micro-community in inner-city Seattle.Providing background with an analysis of Seattle's geographic, demographic, social, and economic challenges, this volume studies the students who became asylum seekers; their falls in position, power, prestige; and the income of these elite and non-elite settlers. The authors analyze examples of those who became entrepreneurs and the ingenuity and determination they employed to start successful businesses.The authors examine the challenges imposed on them by a school system that assigned their children to grade levels according to age rather than knowledge. They explore how the American welfare system worked in practice and explain how and why Ethiopians die young in Seattle. This fascinating study will be of interest to sociologists, ethnographers, and regional analysts.

Haile Selassie I, the last emperor of Ethiopia, was as brilliant as he was formidable. An early proponent of African unity and independence who claimed to be a descendant of King Solomon, he fought with the Allies against the Axis powers during World War II and was a messianic figure for the Jamaican Rastafarians. But the final years of his empire saw turmoil and revolution, and he was ultimately overthrown and assassinated in a communist coup. Written by Asfa-Wossen Asserate, Haile Selassie’s grandnephew, this is the first major biography of this final “king of kings.” Asserate, who spent his childhood and adolescence in Ethiopia before fleeing the revolution of 1974, knew Selassie personally and gained intimate insights into life at the imperial court. Introducing him as a reformer and an autocrat whose personal history—with all of its upheavals, promises, and horrors—reflects in many ways the history of the twentieth century itself, Asserate uses his own experiences and painstaking research in family and public archives to achieve a colorful and even-handed portrait of the emperor.