Bahru Zewde (born 1947 in Addis Ababa) is an Ethiopian historian and author. He writes extensively about modern Ethiopian history (1855 to the present) and is now an emeritus professor at Addis Ababa University where he once served as the Head of the History Department and the Director of the

Institute of Ethiopian Studies The Institute of Ethiopian Studies (IES) was officially established in 1963 to collect information on Ethiopian civilization, its history, cultures, and languages.Pankhurst, Richard. "Institute of Ethiopian Studies." In Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: He ...

Early life and education

He earned his B.A. in History with distinction from

Haile Selassie Haile Selassie I ( gez, ቀዳማዊ ኀይለ ሥላሴ, Qädamawi Häylä Səllasé, ; born Tafari Makonnen; 23 July 189227 August 1975) was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as Regent Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia ('' ...

I University (now known as

Addis Ababa University Addis Ababa University (AAU) ( am, አዲስ አበባ ዩኒቨርሲቲ) is a national university located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It is the oldest university in Ethiopia. AAU has thirteen campuses. Twelve of these are situated in Addis Ababa, ...

) in 1970 and his Ph.D. in African history from the

School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury ar ...

at the University of London in 1976.

Career

In addition to his professorship at Addis Ababa University, Zewde was a visiting professor at

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universi ...

in 1992 and at

Hamburg University The University of Hamburg (german: link=no, Universität Hamburg, also referred to as UHH) is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('' Allgemeines Vo ...

in 2002. He has also held fellowships at

the British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...

, and

the Japan Foundation The was established in 1972 by an Act of the National Diet as a special legal entity to undertake international dissemination of Japanese culture, and became an Independent Administrative Institution under the jurisdiction of the Ministry ...

Selected publications

* ''A History of Modern Ethiopia 1855–1991''. Suffolk:

James Currey James Currey is a former academic publisher specialising in African Studies which since 2008 has been an imprint of Boydell & Brewer. It is named after its founder who established the company in 1984. It publishes on a full spectrum of topics� ...

. 1991. * ''Pioneers of Change In Ethiopia: the Reformist Intellectuals of the Early Twentieth Century''. Athens: Ohio University Press. 2002; Oxford: James Currey. 2002. * '''Between the Jaws of Hyenas': A Diplomatic History of Ethiopia 1876-1896''. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. 2002., editor. * ''Land, Gender and the Periphery: Themes in the History of Eastern and Southern Africa''. Addis Ababa: Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa. 2005., editor. * ''Society, State, and Identity in African History''. Addis Ababa: Forum for Social Science. 2008., editor. * ''Documenting the Ethiopian Student Movement: an Exercise in Oral History''. Addis Ababa: Forum for Social Studies. 2010. * ''Society & State in Ethiopian History''. Los Angeles:

TSEHAI Publishers TSEHAI Publishers is an independent, academic press based at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, U.S. It has various imprints, and is run by its founder, exiled Ethiopian journalist and publisher Elias Wondimu. History Won ...

. 2012. * ''The Quest for Socialist Utopia: The Ethiopian Student Movement, c. 1960-1974.'' Suffolk: James Currey. 2014.

References

1947 births Living people Ethiopian historians Addis Ababa University alumni Alumni of SOAS University of London Ethiopian expatriates in the United Kingdom Ethiopianists Fellows of the African Academy of Sciences {{Africanist-stub