Ethiopia & Djibouti Books

Ethiopia, 4th: The Bradt Travel Guide

Philip Briggs

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This Bradt guide has become the definitive source of information on this country rich in culture, history, and dramatic scenery. For first-time visitors, Philip Briggs supplies plenty of practical advice on how to bridge the cultural gap and plan a trouble-free trip. Heritage hotspots in a land thought to be the cradle of civilization and resting place of the Ark of the Covenant include the architecturally fascinating rock-hewn church of Lalibela, the unofficial eighth wonder of the world, and ancient palaces and staelae at Axum. Ethiopia boasts nine national parks and several wildlife sanctuaries, all of which are detailed in Philip Briggs's comprehensive text.

This guide features:
>Where to find some of East Africa's rarest wildlife, including the Simien wolf, walia ibex, and gelada baboon
>Ethiopia's national parks and wildlife sanctuaries
>Traveling the Northern Historic Circuit
>Addis Ababa in detail: where to stay, eat, and drink, plus nearby sightseeing

Ethiopia & Eritrea (Country Guide)

Matt Phillips

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Lonely Planet Ethiopia and Eritrea 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I travelled hree weeks in Ethiopia from 27.12.2006-12.1.2007 time. I visited Addis Ababa, Wollea, Debre Zeit, Dire Dawa, Lake Langano, Awasa and Harar. I used this book as a base for my travel plan and it never failed me. I read the book allways forehand at night before we entered a next place. It saved my son for a trouble becaus of framed Addis Abeba hustler information. He went to one of those ethnic conert the book was warning about and everything hapened exactly as told in the guide book. I got him out of that concert immediately and he saved 1000 bir.

Hotel information was very accurate, except the prices had come up 10 %.

Now I am back in Finland and I am very thankful for the writers. The arranged me a safe trip to one of the worlds poorest and most dangerous countries.

rgards

heikki turunen

Editorial Review:

Awe-inspiring, beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking, Ethiopia and Eritrea are not like anywhere you've been before. A realm of rock-hewn churches, buzzing bazaars and untouched wilderness, the Horn of Africa is truly unique. See the mist rising off the mountains, hear the gurgle of children's laughter in the narrow streets of Harar, or catch a glimpse of a wolf prowling under the thorn trees.

THE BEST COVERAGE- the only guidebook to comprehensively cover Ethiopia and Eritrea and explain how to cross between them via Djibouti

READ UP- all the details you need to travel the Historical Circuit, including ancient cities in northern Ethiopia

BRING OUT THE ADVENTURER- climb a rope, use toeholds or walk a ledge to reach churches and hill-top monasteries

EAT AND DRINK- know your injera from your kitfo, and why the third cup of coffee is the most important

TRAVEL SAFELY- we keep you worded up on the scams, health issues and no-go areas

Sign and the Seal: The Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant

Graham Hancock

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 79 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The fact of the Lost Ark of the Covenant is one of the grant historical mysteries of all time. To believers, the Ark is the legendary vesel holding the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. The Bible contains hundreds of references to the Ark's power to level mountains, destroy armies, and lay waste to cities. The Ark itself, however, mysteriously disappears from recorded history sometime after the building of the Temple of Solomon.

After ten years of searching through the dusty archives of Europe and the Middle East, as well as braving the real-life dangers of a bloody civil war in Ethiopia, Graham Hancock has succeeded where scores of others have failed. This intrepid journalist has tracked down the true story behind the myths and legends -- revealing where the Ark is today, how it got there, and why it remains hidden.

Part fascinating scholarship and part entertaining adventure yarn, tying together some of the most intriguing tales of all time -- from the Knights Templar and Prester John to Parsival and the Holy Grail -- this book will appeal to anyone fascinated by the revelation of hidden truths, the discovery of secret mysteries.

Held at a Distance: A Rediscovery of Ethiopia

Rebecca G. Haile

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Part travelogue, part history, part memoir, Rebecca Haile's Held at a Distance shines a bright and unique light on Ethiopia, a country in whose fortunes we as Americans and Westerners have been concerned for some time, but which remains in large part a mystery to many of us. . . . Today, Ethiopia, for far too many people, is synonymous with poverty and warfare; but for generations of African Americans, it was the font of black civilization itself, the spiritual source of visions of a united and prosperous Pan-Africa, the living testament to the glories that were Black Africa. In her bold new book, Haile moves far beyond the one-dimensional headlines that encapsulate Ethiopia in the Western press to provide as rich and nuanced a portrait of her native land as I have seen. It's an important and beautifully written volume."--HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR., Harvard University

"This is the story of an Ethiopian child who became an American adult, and then returned to rediscover her country of origin after 25 years. What she discovers is the difficulty and dangers of defining identity in our contemporary world, a well-nigh universal problem. This is a memoir that reads like a novel, and encourages thoughtful reflection on our dilemmas."--IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN, Yale University

In this first hand account of a woman's journey back to her homeland, Rebecca Haile's Held at a Distance: My Rediscovery of Ethiopia gives readers a powerful and unique glimpse into a fascinating African country. Haile was born in Ethiopia in 1965 and lived there until she was eleven years old. When the Emperor was deposed by a military coup, Haile's father, a leading academic in Addis Ababa, was shot while "resisting arrest." Barely surviving, he escaped with his family and settled in central Minnesota where they struggled with the cultural and financial strain of their drastically changed circumstances.

Haile grew up in America harboring her precious childhood memories, but in time saw herself as more American than Ethiopian. She attended Williams College and went on to graduate from Harvard Law School. In 2001, she was the first member of her family to return to Ethiopia. Her trip profiles key family members who are still living in the country, and she writes movingly about Ethiopia's recent past and its ancient history.

Few books have dealt with the millions of Ethiopians affected by war and strife in their country. Rebecca Haile's book brings into focus the challenges and consequences of three decades of political upheaval in Ethiopia. She offers a clear-eyed analysis of the country today, and her keen observations and personal experiences will resonate with readers.

Ethiopia: Peoples of the Omo Valley

Hans Silvester

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Superb! 5 out of 5 stars.
16 of 16 people found this review helpful.

I hated to shell out the big bucks, but I've hit rock bottom and I admit I'm a junkie for books on places where I've been in tribal Africa. So I had to do it--and I'm glad I did.

It's hard to imagine having any books at all on tribal life anywhere in the world and not have this two-volume set. The photography and its richness of color as printed on the page just can't be topped. Is it just me, or are more people "discovering" the Omo Valley these days? It's in southern Ethiopia, where people still live much as they have for centuries--they still compete against nature for sustenance, tribes still fight each other for grazing land, women still wear goat skins and the men of some tribes still consider the most minimal of clothing optional. It is one of the few places in the world where tribal attire and body painting is the real, every-day thing--not something put on for tourists. Silvester represents it well in this set. And unlike so many coffee table books, in which any kind of meaningful narrative is catch as catch can, Silvester's narrative is informative and engaging--more anecdotal than a scholarly treatise.

Good news: no thumbnails in the back, where you have to go for captions. Captions are with the pictures, but I wish more of the pictures were captioned.

I was apprehensive about the second volume. The editorial review can be interpreted as meaning photos of the body paintings have been turned into abstract art. I didn't really want to pay for something like that. But again, I wasn't disappointed. The second volume is just photos, not photos reworked into abstract art. The art on their bodies already is abstract art. I swear, I have seen far less impressive paintings hanging in art galleries, commanding many thousands of dollars! Page after page, you will say aloud, "This is amazing!"

Some will hate Silvester's work. As we've seen in other reviews of books covering tribal Africa, there will always be some who seem embarrassed by all the nudity. They will angrily denounce such books as somehow "false," claiming such Africa no longer exists. Weird wishful thinking, I suppose, probably having something to do with internalized racism. This 2-volume set, then, is not for them. This photographer does not select for publication only those shots where an elbow or a leaf just happens to shield the viewer from prudish sensitivities. And that gives you a sense of honesty about the work. You don't feel manipulated as you might if you felt the photographer had an agenda or was trying to be gentle with you. You don't have a vague sense of wondering what else he doesn't want you to know.

The lives and culture of the Omo Valley peoples are so different from ours in the West that we can find them shocking at first take. Sylvester addresses this. "When you see how these people live, you can't help asking: 'What is a savage?' What do we understand by the term 'primitive'?" I wouldn't have used the word "savage," not even in the context of the question, because it might imply the people really are more or less savage unless granted some kind of special, sympathetic interpretation of the depiction. I would not want to remotely suggest they could be seen as "savage." (Perhaps the translation from Silvester's German wasn't the best in this instance.) In any case, once you spend time with these people--in his case, I think it was 9 trips over 3 years--the mystery and the oddities quickly become not so odd or mysterious. Should the photographer, then, produce a work that carefully considers Western unfamiliarity and shock, or a work that caters more to authenticity? He goes for the authentic.

Check out Giansanti's work, and Beckwith & Fisher. Those are great too. But don't come up short without this one, either. It will take you on a wonderful, close-up journey into the harsh but beautiful land, and the hard but beautiful lives of the people of the Omo Valley.

Editorial Review:

In this ambitious work, Hans Silvester turns his photographic eye toward ancient Africa, the birthplace of humanity. Silvester was essentially adopted by his subjects during his travels, and his stunning color photographs present a rare, intimate view of their world.

The first volume of this deluxe two-volume set presents the everyday lives of the Omo people, their rituals, parades, children’s games, and even their battles. In the second volume, each photograph becomes a masterpiece of abstract art, revealing close-ups of the tribes’ traditional body paintings. Silvester’s accompanying text traces his journey to the Horn of Africa, revealing the fascinating beauty of a world now in danger of extinction.

The Blue Nile

Alan Moorehead

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Very interesting background on 19th century Sudan and Ethiopia 4 out of 5 stars.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful.

I have read a lot of history on ancient Egypt and was passingly familiar with Napoleon's conquest of Egypt, however, I had absolutely no background on other aspects of 19th century Egypt and neighboring Sudan and Ethiopia.

This book was extremely enlightening with respect to such subjects as Mamaluke rule of Egypt prior to Napoleon's arrival and the subsequent reign of Muhammad Ali. However, by far the most interesting and educational part of the book was the last half which dealt primarily with the reign of Theodore, Emperor of Ethiopia and the British invasion to secure the release of European hostages held by Theodore. Prior to reading this book, I'd never heard of Theodore nor the British invasion of Ethiopia.

Blue Nile is a companion piece to White Nile, the Blue Nile being the Nile tributary which feeds into the river at Khartoum, Sudan having flowed from its source in the Ethiopian highlands. Moorehead does a very good job in describing the various expeditions which sought the source of the Blue Nile as well as the political and social anarchy endemic to the region.

Editorial Review:

In the first half of the nineteenth century, only a small handful of Westerners had ventured into the regions watered by the Nile River on its long journey from Lake Tana in Abyssinia to the Mediterranean-lands that had been forgotten since Roman times, or had never been known at all. In The Blue Nile, Alan Moorehead continues the classic, thrilling narration of adventure he began in The White Nile, depicting this exotic place through the lives of four explorers so daring they can be considered among the world's original adventurers -- each acting and reacting in separate expeditions against a bewildering background of slavery and massacre, political upheaval and all-out war.

Surrender or Starve: Travels in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, and Eritrea

Robert D. Kaplan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

The worst book on the Horn of Africa I have ever read 1 out of 5 stars.
20 of 24 people found this review helpful.

Kaplan's book "Balkan Ghosts" was described by slavist H. Cooper (Slavic Review 52, 1993) as "a dreadful mix of unfounded generalizations, misinformation, outdated sources, personal prejudices and bad writing". The same can be applied to "Surrender or starve". Any specialist could point dozens of minor errors in this book, but lack of scholarship is not the worst. Kaplan is exasperatingly tendentious and partial and his extraordinary simplification and misunderstanding of the conflict in the Horn is outrageous. He overemphasizes the ethnic component, sometimes dangerously approaching racism in his contempt for the Amharas (they are all intrinsically bad). To be sure, the Derg (the communist regime) was evil, but linking a particular culture (the Amharas) with a transient political regime that was imposed against the people's will is absolutely wrong. Besides, anyone minimally informed knows how many Amharas suffered by the resettlement policies of the Derg.
Worst of all, Kaplan embraces the politics he presumedly criticizes: "Surrender or starve" is not the slogan of the former Ethiopian communist regime, it is Kaplan's own motto. According to the author, we should have left 10 million Ethiopians starve in 1984-85, so as to foster a local rebellion against communist rule! To put it bluntly, this book is scholarly defective and morally despicable.

Forget Kaplan. If you really want to be informed about the complex reality of Ethiopia and neighboring countries, take a look at any of the books written by historians Bahru Zewde and Harold G. Marcus or by anthropologist Donald Donham. And if you want to be informed and at the same time enjoy a superb literary experience go for Ryszard Kapuscinski's "The Emperor"!

Editorial Review:

Robert D. Kaplan is one of our leading international journalists, someone who can explain the most complicated and volatile regions and show why they’re relevant to our world. In Surrender or Starve, Kaplan illuminates the fault lines in the Horn of Africa, which is emerging as a crucial region for America’s ongoing war on terrorism.

Reporting from Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea, Kaplan examines the factors behind the famine that ravaged the region in the 1980s, exploring the ethnic, religious, and class conflicts that are crucial for understanding the region today. He offers a new foreword and afterword that show how the nations have developed since the famine, and why this region will only grow more important to the United States. Wielding his trademark ability to blend on-the-ground reporting and cogent analysis, Robert D. Kaplan introduces us to a fascinating part of the world, one that it would behoove all of us to know more about.

Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience (Belknap Press)

Frank M. Snowden

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Here's a book to raise the spirits of anyone of African descent who feels that he or she has nothing to do with the making of Western civilization. Frank M. Snowden Jr., a world-renowned scholar on ancient Greece and Rome who taught at Howard and Georgetown Universities, details with encyclopedic and painstaking scholarship and research the undeniable presence of Africans in the Greco-Roman world. "The experiences of those Africans who reached the alien shores of Greece and Italy constituted an important chapter in the history of classical antiquity," he writes. Using evidence from terra cotta figures, paintings, and classical sources like Herodotus and Pliny the Elder, Snowden proves, contrary to our modern assumptions, that Greco-Romans did not view Africans with racial contempt. Many Africans worked in the Roman Empire as musicians, artisans, scholars, and generals as well as slaves, and they were noted as much for their virtue as for their appearance of having a "burnt face" (from which came the Greek name Ethiopian). --Eugene Holley Jr.

Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti Map by Cartographia (World Travel Map) (French and German Edition)

Cartographia

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Editorial Review:

Paper folded road and travel map in color. Scale 1:2,500,000. Distinguishes roads ranging from international/national main roads to earth roads. Legend includes tracks (vehicular)/caravan routes, trails, roads under construction, railways, airports/airfields, volcanos, craters, oasis, wells, tourist's sites, historical sites, scenic spots, fortresses/ruins, museums, national parks, nature reserves, game reserves, lava fields, salt lakes, hotels, restaurants, safari bungalows, rest areas/camping sites, gas stations. Includes inset map of Adid Abeba (1:30,000), The local fauna, Awash National Park. Extensive index on back of map.

Vanishing Africa: A Photographer's Journey

Gianni Giansanti, Paolo Novaresio

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Vanishing 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

The photographs are everything, showing African villagers much as they have lived for the past century. This is not modern Africa, but its last remaining tribal cultures completely tied to the rhythms and livelihood of stoop farming, animal husbandry, and tribal warfare. The people are often beautiful, their adornments alternately colorful and extreme (those lip disks make me wince).

At the time of this review, the Omo valley, in which these tribes are located, is threatened by flooding; this acts as a commentary on the reality of these peoples' lives. It is not idyllic or problem-free; also noted is the presence of Kalashnikov automatic rifles in at least one tribe. That this should be the only visible presence of modernity in this primitive locale, is a sobering comment upon what "progress" has brought to "backward" people.

Many of the photographs are close-ups of individual faces and of small groups. The book is entirely desirable for this alone. Soon, these scenes will only exist in a book, as the final transition to contemporary life inevitably presses itself upon these tribes.

Editorial Review:

A dead branch of the Rift Valley, worn hills and plains beaten by the relentless sun, this is the region that spreads around the valley of the Omo River. The wild and remote southern region of Ethiopia only appeared on maps little over a century ago when the first European explorers discovered there a mosaic of ethnic groups. These are peoples that have remained isolated for centuries and that have retained their cultures and customs intact to the present day-peoples like the Surma, Mursi, Karo and many more. By examining a region in the heart of the Black Continent, the book attempts to trace the roots of remotest Africa: the cradle of man, where ancestral bonds with nature still exist. By means of his camera and his pen, in this book the authors have encapsulated long years of study of the peoples and ethnic groups of this continent, in search of vanishing Africa.