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Interpreting the Ethiopian Revolution

Imperial Heritage and Embattled Statehood

Interpreting the Ethiopian Revolution cover

Interpreting the Ethiopian Revolution

Imperial Heritage and Embattled Statehood

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Pre-order. Available 16 Oct 2025
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Description

Fifty years after the 1974 Ethiopian revolution, Etana H. Dinka brings together a who's-who of modern Ethiopian studies in order to offer this long-overdue analysis of the revolution and its legacies. With contributions both from seasoned academics-many of whom wrote about the revolution as it developed-and from representatives of a younger generation, this six-part collection offers new insights not only into the revolution itself, but also into issues such as the Red Terror, the EPRDF revolution of 1991, and Abiy Ahmed's repositioning of Ethiopia after 2018.

Such wide-ranging analyses cumulatively cast Ethiopia's three successive post-revolution regimes not as separate entities, but rather as successive attempts to fulfil the promise of the revolution surrounding issues such as ethnicity, the nationalities question, economic development, and the land tenure question. In developing this model, the collection captures the defining developments and issues in Ethiopia, the Horn, and the Red Sea region over the past fifty years, and it speaks directly to a global body of knowledge about revolutions; state-making projects and empires; and warfare and military interventions in politics.

A unique collection that expands the historical revolutionary analyses of Ethiopian politics and society to the present in order to suggest new ways of ensuring social, economic, and environmental justice for all, this book is a must-read for researchers and upper-level students interested in Ethiopia, the Horn of Africa, African Studies, and revolutionary politics and land economics in general.

Table of Contents

Maps
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments

Introduction: The 1974 Ethiopian Revolution at Fifty
Etana H. Dinka
Part I Historical Context and Ideological Underpinnings
Revolutionary Africa: Historical Patterns of Transformative Rupture
Richard Reid
Ethiopian Revolution in Broader Perspective: Five Decades On
John Markakis
Ethiopia and the Revolution within the Revolution
John Young
Part II The Road to the Revolution and Enduring Impacts
Ethiopia's Road to the Revolution
Randi Rønning Balsvik
Land Tenure, National Question, and the Road to The Ethiopian Revolution of 1974: The Oromo Factor
Benti Getahun
Struggling for Liberation: Revolutionary Iconographies, Local Nationalisms, and Evolving Practices of Resistance
Sarah Vaughan
Part III Landholding System, State, and Revolution
Land, People, and the State in Ethiopia: Re-examining the 1975 “Public Ownership of Rural Lands” Proclamation
Gutu O. Wayessa
Ethiopia's Unsettled Land Questions: Claims of Access, Ownership, and Governance since the 1974 Revolution
Asebe Regassa
Part IV Religious Dynamics, Revolution, and the State
Revolution, Repression, and Revival: The Derg's Impact on Ethiopia's Religions
Jörg Haustein and Terje Østebø
Bringing Religion Back In: The Ethiopian Revolution and Evangelical Christianity
Ezekiel Gebissa
Part V Revolution, Ethnonationalism, and the State
Revolutionary Ruptures, Regime Changes, and the Oromo Question: A Fifty-year View of the 1974 Unsuccessful Ethiopian Revolution
Asafa Jalata
Different Shades of Progressivism: The Mobilizations of the Afar People in Response to the Ethiopian Revolution and the Derg Regime, 1974–7
Aramis Houmed Soulé and Éloi Ficquet
The Ethiopian Revolution, Oromo Nationalism, and Environmental Challenges in Oromia
Tesema Ta'a and Deressa Debu
Part VI Revolution and State Reorganization
The 1974 Revolution, the Nationality Question, and Federalism in Ethiopia
Assefa Fiseha
Statehood and Plural National Identities: Revolution and Ethiopia's Multinational Federalism (1974–2024)
Etana H. Dinka
The Woyane: Ethiopia's Lasting Revolution
Kjetil Tronvoll
Ethiopia: Still Struggling with the Imperial Legacy
Marina Ottaway

List of Contributors
Index

Product details

Published 16 Oct 2025
Format Ebook (PDF)
Edition 1st
Extent 328
ISBN 9781350434998
Imprint Zed Books
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Etana H. Dinka

Etana H. Dinka is Assistant Professor of History a…

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