Reading Ethiopia (Books)

Suggested reading on Ethiopia. Feel free to send me your additions and I'll add them to the list.


In chronological order:

The Ethiopia Books of Travels (1904, translated in 2021) Pasha

Indo-Ethiopian Relations for Centuries (1961) Muthanna

The Blue Nile (1962) Moorehead

Wichale XVII: The Attempt to Establish a Protectorate Over Ethiopia (1964) Rubenson

Wax & Gold (1965) Levine

Land Tenure in Chore (Shoa) (1965) Mann

State and Land in Ethiopian History (1966) Pankhurst

Land Tenure in Eritrea (1966) Zekarias

Tewodros of Ethiopia (1967) Rubenson

History of the Ethiopian Army (1967) Pankhurst

The Italo-Ethiopian War (1975) Ministry of Information

Somalia - The Problem Child of Africa? (1977) Wolde Mariam

A Social History of Land Reform in Ethiopia (1983) Pausewang

Victorious Struggle Against Fascism (1985) Ministry of Information

The History of Famines and Epidemics in Ethiopia Prior to the Twentieth Century (1985) Pankhurst

Agrarian Reform in Ethiopia (1895) Rahmato

The Challenges of Drought (1985) RRC

From Poverty to Famine (1987) McCann

Surrender or Starve (1988) Kaplan

Ethiopia Engraved, 1681-1900 (1988) Pankhurst and Ingrams

People of the Plow (1990) McCann

A Social History of Ethiopia (1990) R. Pankhurst

Options for Rural Development (1990) Pausewang, Cheru, Brune and Chole

Evil Days (1991) de Waal

A History of Modern Ethiopia (1991) Bahru Zewde

Peasant Households and their Resource Base (1993) Aspen

Imagining Ethiopia (1993) Sorenson

From Bullets to the Ballot Box (1994) Kinfe Abraham

Ethiopia Photographed, 1867-1935 (1996) Pankhurst and Gerard 

The Ethiopian Borderlands (1997) R. Pankhurst

The Ethiopians (2001) R. Pankhurst

The Challenge of Democracy from Below (2002) Bahru and Pausewang

Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia (2002) Bahru Zewde

Sweetness in the Belly (2005) Gibb (fiction)

Zara Yacob: Rationality of the Human Heart (2005) Kiros

Development Interventions in Wollaita (2007) Rahmato

The Peasant and the State (2008) Rahmato

Famine and Foreigners (2010) Gill

Education, Politics and Social Change in Ethiopia (2010) Milkias and Kebede

Philosophical Essays (2011) Teodros Kiros

Ethiopian Discourse (2011) Teodros Kiros

Enlightened Aid – U.S. Development as Foreign Policy in Ethiopia (2012) McVety

Social Hierarchy of Dawuro (2012) Dubale

Food Security, Safety Nets and Social Protection in Ethiopia (2013) Rahmato and A. Pankhurst

The Historical Ecology of Malaria in Ethiopia (2014) McCann

Emperor Haile Selassie (2014) Bereket

Reflections on Development in Ethiopia (2014) Rahmato and Ayenew

The Quest for Socialist Utopia (2014) Bahru

The Last Post-Cold War Socialist Federation (2014) Abebe

Ethiopian Labour Migration to the Gulf and South Africa (2015) Asnake Kefale and Zerihun Mohammed

A Decade of Ethiopia (2017) Abbink

The Khat Conundrum in Ethiopia (2017) Yeraswork

Native Colonialism (2017) Yirga 

Agricultural Transformation in Ethiopia (2018) Atakilte

Foreign Direct Investment in Large-Scale Agriculture in Africa (2019) Persson

Land Tenure Security (2019) Ege

Oxford Handbook on the Ethiopian Economy (2019) Fantu, Cramer, Arkebe

Ethiopia in the Wake of Political Reform (2020) Desta, Dori, Mihrertu

Land to the Tiller (2020) Oosthuizen

Islam, Ethnicity, and Conflict in Ethiopia (2020) Ostebo

Love and Liberation (2021) Carruth

Ethiopia & Food Security (2021) Cochrane


Constructing “Development” (Ferguson, 1990)
Social Life of Disease - Smallpox

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