Guardians of the Tradition: historians and historical writing in Ethiopia and Eritrea by James De Lorenzi (review)

Guardians of the Tradition, De Lorenzi's first monograph, responds simultaneously to recent calls in intellectual history for more international and plural approaches, and to calls in Ethiopian studies for a more dedicated focus on Ethiopian thinkers and ideas. The book focuses on the highland regions of present-day Ethiopia and Eritrea, where a complex and varied tradition of historiographical writing has flourished since medieval times. This tradition, De Lorenzi remarks, is little known outside the society that produced it, and has been disregarded, both within and outside African studies, in debates about orality, literacy, and the modernity of historical thinking. The creativity and richness of Ethiopian historical writing forcefully challenge the argument that historiography is a product of Western modernity and a Western export – a point rather obvious for Africanists, but not so obvious in the field of history at large, which De Lorenzi attacks for its 'parochialism' and 'latent Eurocentrism' (p. 138).

Through the works of three intellectuals, Gäbrä Krestos Täklä Haymanot (1892– 1932), Gäbrä Mika'él Germu (1900–69) and H̬eruy Wäldä Śellasé (1878–1938), Guardians of the Tradition argues that in the early twentieth century vernacular historiography thrived in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The global political, economic and cultural forces to which Ethiopian and Eritrean intellectuals were exposed encouraged them to experiment with new methods, sources and analytical tools. Gäbrä Krestos, Gäbrä Mika'él, H̬eruy and many of their contemporaries creatively appropriated Western sources and methods, while at the same time committing to the preservation of the inherited tradition. They aimed at becoming 'modern through the past' (p. 4). The era's collective project was one of 'open inquiry and informed critical synthesis' (p. 9). Alongside the historiographical heritage of Ethiopia's own past, Western ideas were an important influence, but they never became hegemonic: 'vernacular historical writing was not westernized', argues Di Lorenzi, 'instead, Western historiography was indigenized' (p. 10).

This argument is advanced most forcefully in the second chapter of the book. In his 1924 Ač̣̣̌č̣̣̌er Yä'aläm Tarik Bamareña (Short History of the World in Amharic), Gäbrä Krestos reads global history through a hierarchy of progress that differentiates between 'civilized' and 'uncivilized' people. Although he uses some Western racial classifications, his account diverges from Western conceptions of modernity. In Short History, De Lorenzi shows, world historical development is defined by the spread and endurance of Christianity, not by the growth of science, wealth or freedom. Although historicist, Short History opposes the universalist claims of Western Eurocentrism, and situates Ethiopia among the world's modern countries.

The fifth chapter suggests that things changed after 1941, when a more Eurocentric brand of historicism, based on modernization theory, was adopted by intellectuals such as Käbbädä Mika'él (1916–98). For Käbbädä, Ethiopia was backward, and, in order to achieve modernity, had to learn from the West. These years coincided with the institutionalization of Ethiopian studies, a field that up until that moment had remained 'a private preserve with non-native wardens' (p. 136). The rise of academic historiography in Ethiopia, particularly in the 1960s, brought more balance to the discipline. Many Ethiopian historians gained international recognition, published some historiographical classics, and effectively indigenized Ethiopian studies. Vernacular historiography, far from disappearing, continued to prosper, albeit separately from academic historiography. Käbbädä Mika'él himself, after his initial Eurocentric orientation, produced more traditional historical works that firmly asserted Ethiopia's significance in world history.

Throughout the book, De Lorenzi repeatedly draws the reader's attention to the discursive and scholarly agency of Ethiopian intellectuals. Against the recent scholarly accusations that the 1960s intelligentsia embraced Marxism because it was culturally alienated from the Ethiopian heritage, De Lorenzi defends the academic achievements of Western-trained academic historians. As for vernacular historians, they worked to develop, preserve and...