The Survival of Ethiopean Independence.

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SVEN RUBENSON is Professor of History at what is now Addis Ababa University. He has been teaching in the history department at the University College and Haile Sellassie I University since 1960. He was a visiting Professor at the Institute of International Affairs at Columbia University in 1967.

He was born in 1921 in Sweden and educated at the University of Lund to which he submitted his L.Phil. disserta­tion on Ethiopian history in 1954. He has been a missionary, teacher and educational administrator in Ethiopia since 1947 and was Headmaster of the Ethiopian Evangelical College, Debre Zeyt from 1955 to 1958.                                    

His publications include Wichale XVII; I the attempt to establish a protectorate over Ethiopia (1964) and King of Kings; Tewodros of Ethiopia (1966).

How did it happen that Ethiopia alone of all the old states in Africa preserved its independence throughout the era of European colonization? Why did Ethiopia alone survive the scramble for Africa as a free nation?

In this book Professor Rubenson has devoted his attention to this fundamental question in the modern history of the ancient kingdom. His analysis of nineteenth-century contacts between Ethiopians and foreigners is based wherever possible on contemporary Ethiopian documents. It demonstrates that it was neither physical inaccessibility nor lack of determination by imperial powers to subdue the country that saved it from colonization. This book has much to offer to those interested in the mechanisms by which the Europeans created dependence in Africa.

However, its main objective is to provide the Ethiopian side of the story: the growing awareness of the issues involved, the birth of a conscious and active foreign policy, and the determination to resist foreign tutelage and conquest whatever the cost.

Notes

Véritable encyclopédie, le travail de Sven Rubenson est irremplaçable et n’a pris aucune ride.

Biblethiophile, 01.07.2025