For further study

Reference works on the Horn of Africa

Encyclopaedia Aethiopica. 5 volumes. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag:

  • vol. 1: edited by S. Uhlig, 2003
  • vol. 2: edited by S. Uhlig, 2005
  • vol. 3: edited by S. Uhlig, 2007
  • vol. 4: edited by S. Uhlig in cooperation with A. Bausi, 2010
  • vol. 5: edited by A. Bausi in cooperation with S. Uhlig, 2014

Uhlig, Siegbert et al., eds. (2017). Ethiopia: History, Culture and Challenges. Münster etc.: Lit Verlag; East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press. [General readership compendium based on the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica; Google Books]

Bahru Zewde. A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855-1991 (Eastern African Studies). 2nd edition. Oxford: James Currey; Athens: Ohio Univ. Press; Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University Press, 2001. [Google Books]

Marcus, Harold G. A History of Ethiopia. Updated edition. Berkeley etc.: University of California Press, 2002. [Google Books]

Prunier, Gérard and Éloi Ficquet, eds. Understanding Ethiopia [monarchy, revolution and the legacy of Meles Zenawi]. London: Hurst & Company, 2015. [Google Books]

Visual Arts

Elizabeth W. Giorgis. Modernist Art in Ethiopia. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2019. [Google Books]

Mercier, Jacques. Art of Ethiopia: From the Origins to the Golden Age. Paris: Editions Place des Victoires, 2021. [“Golden Age” = 15th century]

Silverman, Raymond, and Neal Sobania. Ethiopian Church Art: Painters, Patrons, Purveyors. Los Angeles, CA: Tsehai Publishers, 2022.

Tekletsadik Belachew. Stories from the Fireplace: Theological Meditations on Haile Gerima’s Cinema. Bamenda (Cameroon): Langaa Research and Publishing Common Initiative Group, 2021. [Google Books]

Good to know

Bliese, Loren F. “Translating Psalm 23 in Traditional Afar Poetry”, in Hebrew Poetry in the Bible: A Guide for Understanding and for Translating, by L. Zogbo and E.R. Wendland, 185-194. Reading (UK) and New York: United Bible Societies, 2000.

Boylston, Tom. The Stranger at the Feast: Prohibition and Mediation in an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Community (The Anthropology of Christianity, 23). Oakland: University of California Press, 2018. [Online version]

Forslund, Eskil. The Word of God in Ethiopian Tongues: Rhetorical Features in the Preaching of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus. Uppsala: The Swedish Institute for Missionary Research, 1993.

Mohammed Girma. Understanding Religion and Social Change in Ethiopia: Toward a Hermeneutic of Covenant. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. [Google Books]

Sanneh, Lamin. Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture. Revised and expanded edition (American Society of Missiology Series, 42). Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2015. [Google Books]

Zenahu lägalla [The History of the Galla; probably written by the monk abba Bahrəy in 1593]. Edited and translated into German by A.W. Schleicher. Geschichte der Galla: Bericht eines abessinischen Mönches über die Invasion der Galla im 16. Jahrhundert. Berlin: Fröhlich, 1893. [View online version at HathiTrust.

  • For Oromo words, see esp. p. 38ff.
  • On the social stratification of 16th century Abessinia
    (e.g., däbtära and azmari), see p. 34ff]