Ethiopian History

Ethiopian History follows the long political traditions of the northern Horn of Africa, from early highland states and the kingdom of Aksum through medieval Christian dynasties, Muslim-Christian conflict, imperial expansion and the construction of the modern Ethiopian state.

Aksum participated in Red Sea commerce and adopted Christianity in antiquity. Later rulers negotiated relations with neighbouring Muslim states, Oromo migrations, European diplomacy and internal regional power. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought centralisation, victory at Adwa, Italian occupation, restoration and revolution.

The context is intentionally broad because general histories of Ethiopia cross many conventional periods. Books about the 1935–1936 invasion should use the Second Italo-Ethiopian War child as their most specific relationship.