Reddit mentions: The best ethiopia history books

Here's the rough outline of what we know as historians of Africa:

1. The spread of Christianity to the northern part of modern-day Ethiopia--really Tigray today--came via Aksum. The key convert is believed to be King Ezana (sorry about wikipedia), whose stelae are still around, likely sometime in the 340s. The conversion of Ezana and his early linkage to the Arian Christians and the Copts is where Frumentius the Syrian, who was apparently his tutor, comes in. His converstion was very likely prompted by the connection to Egyptian Christian traders as well as the Roman Empire's embrace of the faith. It appears to have spread from the port at Adulis, but Ezana took it in for much the same reason that rulers of Swahili towns and empires in West Africa initially accepted an eclectic Islam--trade. The comment made about the connection between the Ethiopian Church and the Egyptian one by ServerofJustice is absolutely correct. (Ezana's focus on trade primacy is also shown by his destruction of the rump of Meroë around 350.) It is to this that Ethiopia traces its Christianity, although during centuries of isolation between Aksum and Ethiopia they apparently did not consult Alexandria. At that time the specific link between King Solomon and the court was not made.
   
   
2. Christianity remained, for a very long time, the faith of the elites; the "rediscovery" of Solomon and Sheba was part of a political consolidation in the 14th century. The faith's exclusivity was a problem because, as CaisLaochach points out, Islam was a likely contender. In fact it did make inroads into parts of the kingdom, as a creed that spoke to "common" people in a feudal system. At various times, Ethiopian rulers acquired Muslim subjects or even Muslim subordinates; that problem never went away. Christianity remained the faith of the elites in part because the kingdom became insular after the rise of Islam and the loss by Aksum of Adulis around ?750. Eventually, the rise of the Solomonids in 1270 brought with it a re-orientation of biblical history in the form of the Kebre Negast within a century or so that fleshed out the "story" of Sheba after Solomon. The reality was that Aksum collapsed in the 8th century and we really don't know much about how it became Zagwe Ethiopia, or if it truly did; it's possible Ethiopia is an only loosely-related, new political formation that "wrote backwards" and claimed Aksum ex post facto, going so far as to enthrone its emperors (negusa negast, or king of kings) there. We do know that one Christian elite gave way to another, and the state shifted southward somewhat, changing its focus from trade to feudal mixed-pastoralism. In that space, a centralizing religious focus was very useful: to defy the Solomonids was to defy God on some level. Ethiopia also wasn't alone: Christian kingdoms with Islamic subjects also existed to the west in the Nile Valley (known as the "Nubian Kingdoms" collectively) as late as the 1400s. Those collapsed not via conquest, but because their populations became so overwhelmingly Islamic and dependent on trade with Muslims that the elites simply converted.
   
   
3. The Portuguese basically saved Ethiopia from the fate of Islamic conquest from Adal, once they "discovered" the true root of their Prester John mythology and the forgotten Christian kingdom in Ethiopia in 1520. The emperor at that time requested Portuguese help against Adal and its Ottoman ally (the latter fresh off its conquest of Egypt and the Holy Places of Islam in 1517) but aid didn't arrive until 1540. The conflict that culminated in the battle of Wayna Daga (1543) won by an Ethio-Portuguese force over a Somali/Adal-Ottoman one, and the naval confrontations at the Protuguese harbor of Diu (several really) saved Ethiopia from being overrun. The Portuguese however quickly wore out their welcome, and Jesuit missionaries came to see Ethiopian Christianity as almost heretical. They made no shortage of attempts to convert Ethiopian courtiers and the emperors themselves. Father Lobo's experience at this moment, when they were actually given to the Ottomans by their Ethiopian "hosts" on the expectation they would be killed, is recorded in A Voyage to Abyssinia and it makes for some delicious "wtf" reading. Yes, Father Lobo really thought the Portuguese and then the Papacy should organize a full-scale invasion of Ethiopia. I'm not even kidding. From the Ethiopian side, conversion to Catholicism would have been a devastating refutation of the basis of their political legitimacy internally, and it could not be allowed. Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity as a closely-held faith only later spread actively to the general population, much as was the case with Islam in the western Sahel and Sudan. I don't know the details of the way that appeal was made, though, or whether it was truly gradual; it was never really victorious, and Islam is still quite prominent today. My recollection is that the sources aren't very frank about it but I'll have a look again when I'm back in my library.
   
   
4. That era's Ethiopia was really only the northern third or so of today's Ethiopia-Eritrea matrix. Only with the 1870-1890 conquests of Menelik II of Shoa did it take its current shape and extent. Yes, at that time it incorporated a lot of additional non-Christians, many of whom converted later and some likely under duress. "Colonists" weren't interested in Ethiopia is a confusing comment, though--do you mean that colonial powers weren't ever interested? Tell that to General Baratieri, defeated at Adwa on March 1st, 1896. It was after that military victory by an African state over a European one that more people began rediscovering Ethiopia's "white past" and trying to justify the exception to the colonial tide.
   
   See, for example, Harold Marcus, A History of Ethiopia upd. ed., (2002); Richard Pankhurst, The Ethiopians: A History, (2001); and a variety of histories of Christianity that treat it in chapters. General histories of Africa, including Robert Collins's and Kevin Shillington's, also spend time with Ethiopia and do so fairly well for overviews.
   
   [Edit: I tried to clarify a few things. I typed this in a very stream-of-consciousness way, so I apologize.]

I suggest picking a country or time period you're more interested in. I've read more book about the horn of Africa; For example

The Oromo of Ethiopia: 1570-1860

or The Conquest of Abyssinia: Futuh Al Habasa This one is pretty interesting because it is actually written by someone that witnessed these historical events.

Ibn Battuta is a Berber who lived in the 14th century and travel through west Africa, north Africa and the horn of Africa. He wrote about his travels, you might want to look into him.

I would be happy to offer you an entire list. But, when it comes to military operations, I simply do not know anything else than this: Great Lakes Conflagration.

Ah yes: for 1-2 examples of the Ugandan attempts a mimicking the fire-force-tactics, one might want to reach back upon African MiGs, Volume 2

I read A History of Modern Ethiopia in a class I was taking on North-East Africa. I'd never really read any history about anywhere in Africa (beyond the slave trade), so I found the book really interesting.

My suggestion: a book on the madness and wonder of 19th century African exploration. Specifically The White Nile, one of the great reads of the last century.

Not only may some of the men bring to mind Sir Malcolm, but the tale of Mr. and Mrs. Baker may remind one of the stern stuff of which (some) Victorian Englishwomen were made.

In fact, I think I'll now read Baker's own memoir.

I can't find Alexander Moore. Did you mean Alan Moorehead? https://www.amazon.com/White-Nile-Alan-Moorehead/dp/0060956399

i read a wonderful book about a guy travelling in yemen and ethiopia, it was about his experience with khat and the culture there, it's a very social communal bonding plant and has a long history of usage.

another racist policy related to immigration, rather than the actual plant i'm guessing.

Eating The Flowers Of Paradise

Sorry that it took me 5 days to make this reply, but I honor my promises (thanks to /u/nixons_nose). So here are the other books:

• The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat, written by the famed Polish correspondent Ryszard Kapuscinski, is about the waning days of the last Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Selassie I (also known as Ras Tafari). This is a really compelling read.
  
• Another book on Emperor Haile Selassie, King of Kings: The Triumph and Tragedy of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia offers a more complete and balanced view of the Emperor. Must be read along with Kapuscinski's book.
  
• Gebru Tariki's The Ethiopian Revolution: War in the Horn of Africa tells us of the rise and fall of the socialist dictatorship that replace Selassie's empire, the Derg and Mengistu eras.
  
• Tom Cooper's Wings over Ogaden: The Ethiopian-Somali War, 1978-1979 chronicles a little-known episode of the Cold War era (I'd use "saga" over "era", it sounds better.), the Ogaden War. Nice to see books on African wars, because they are usually ignored and overlooked. Must-read.
  
• Lastly, for a general history of Ethiopia, this book fits the bill: Harold Marcus' A History of Ethiopia Updated Edition.
  
  I hope these books will help you. ;)
  
  EDIT: Added bullets and a link.
  
  
  

Hahle Selassie also made some real progress in ending slavery in Ethiopia, though he hadn't quite finished by the time Italy invaded. He passed several transition type laws, such as children of slaves being born free and forbidding slaves from being bought and sold, with his memoirs indicating that he meant these as interim steps to eradicating slavery within the borders of Ethiopia. Source: The Rape of Ethiopia.