Book Description

The book by Dr. Taddesse Tamrat is an important contribution. ... In fact, the author shows his full and precise knowledge of past literature on Ethiopia, and his critical analysis of historical events is well founded on the results of recent work; but also-and this is an important novelty-he had access to hagiographical and historical documents, kept in Ethiopian monasteries, which had not previously been known to scholars. ... - Professor Enrico Cerulli, in BSOAS, Vol. 37, 1972. Once in a long while, books are written that set the standard in their discipline. Taddesse Tamrat's Church and State has been just such a book, a classic in Ethiopian historiography, unsurpassed in its painstaking reconstruction of the medieval history of Ethiopia. Few historians have used the rich historical data of the gadl literature as exhaustively and as meticulously as Taddesse has done, teasing out crucial information as only an Ethiopian versed in church traditions could do. Equally significant for the value of the book has been the blending of these Ethiopian traditional sources with the rich contemporary Arabic sources and the commentaries and analyses of such authorities as Carlo Conti Rossini. In short, what Taddesse has done through this masterly reconstruction is to blaze the trail that other Ethiopian historians have followed, a process that culminated in the growth and ripening of professional Ethiopian historiography. - Professor Bahru Zewde is the author of A History of Modern Ethiopia Professor Taddesse Tamrat's magisterial historical work Church and State in Ethiopia, 1270-1527, documents the rise and expansion of a new dynasty in highland Christian Ethiopia and the simultaneous growth of Ethiopian monasticism as an intellectual and cultural force. Based upon a broad range of primary sources previously either unknown or not utilized, this book remains the essential text for the history of the highland Christian state of Ethiopia during the period of its development as the dominant state in the Horn of Africa. This seminal work established the historical foundation for subsequent studies in the history of highland Ethiopia, including specialized cultural and historical analyses of theology, music and religious art. - Professor Marilyn E. Heldman is the author of African Zion: The Sacred Art of Ethiopia