Trustees of Boston University

Review
Author(s): Donald Crummey
Review by: Donald Crummey
Source: The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 29, No. 3 (1997), pp.
678-679
Published by: Boston University African Studies Center
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/221410
Accessed: 20-06-2016 11:23 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Boston University African Studies Center, Trustees of Boston University are collaborating
with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The International Journal of African
Historical Studies

This content downloaded from 104.239.165.217 on Mon, 20 Jun 2016 11:23:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
678 BOOK REVIEWS

juxtapositions and counter voices, Conteh-Morgan sometimes fails to see that

certain plays, such as La Tragedie du Roi Christophe, contain spirited self-
critiques. His presentation of Senouvo Zinsou's On joue la comndie, on the
contrary, based strongly in theories of the theatre, demonstrates persuasively how
popular theatre techniques can be used to create new theatrical form. As Conteh-
Morgan comments, in this newer, less "grand" (and less French) drama may well
lie the future of African theatre.

JUDITH G. MILLER

University of Wisconsin-Madison

TIHE BUILDING OF AN EMPIRE: ITALIAN LAND POLICY AND PRACTICE

IN ETHIOPIA 1935-1941. By Haile M. Larebo. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1994. Pp. xxvii, 350; 30 tables, 5 illustrations, $69.00.

Haile Mariam Larebo's Building of an Empire is a welcome addition to the

historical literature on Ethiopia. It adds to Alberto Sbacchi's administratively
oriented monograph on the Italian occupation of the 1930s;1 and is the first
archivally based monograph directed to any aspect of land tenure in the twentieth
century. While huge gaps remain in coverage, even of the recent past, Haile
Mariam's book is a happy reminder that good work is going forward and reaching
the light of day. It is also a reminder that rich sources remain to be tapped, not only
in Italy, but also elsewhere in Europe, in North America, and in Ethiopia.

Haile Mariam's book is a study of the way in which the Fascist rulers of
Ethiopia tried, and strikingly failed, to tun their 1935-36 conquest to the economic
advantage of metropolitan Italy. Trapped by their own rhetoric and the domestic
expectations which it raised, the Italian authorities lurched from half-baked scheme
to half-baked scheme, all of them expensive, none of them remunerative. From
beginning to end, ruling Ethiopia proved ruinously expensive to the conquerors,
and disruptive and oppressive to the conquered. Yet the experience was not without
consequences. In his conclusion, Haile Mariam argues that the Italian occupation
had lasting effects on Ethiopia. He underlines the widely held view that politically
and administratively the Italian intervention paved the way for rapid centralization
under Haile Sellassie's restored regime in the 1940s. More originally, he also
argues that Italian agricultural policies, and infrastructural investnents, especially in
roads, accelerated Ethiopia's involvement in the international capitalist economy.

1 Alberto Sbacchi, Ethiopia under Mussolini: Fascism and the Colonial Experience
(London, 1985).

This content downloaded from 104.239.165.217 on Mon, 20 Jun 2016 11:23:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 BOOK REVIEWS 679

He also notes that, barren of profitable returns, the Italian period was rich in
planning and experimentation, with the result that "it would be difficult in Ethiopia
to mention any major project, whether still under discussion or already
implemented, which had not been investigated, sometimes in a fair amount of
detail, during the period of occupation" (p. 294).

The book consists of seven chapters plus a conclusion, five appendixes and
an extensive bibliography. Four of the appendixes reproduce the translated texts of
contracts between various Italian agencies and their subject Ethiopian farmers,
while the fifth details cotton growing arrangements. The first two chapters provide
background informnation on the development of Italian colonial policy in the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and on the various forms of land tenure
prevalent in Ethiopia prior to the Italian occupation. The heart of the book lies in
chapters 3 through 7. Chapter 3 establishes the broad outlines of Italian land policy
following the occupation. Chapter 4 discusses the first Fascist attempt to encourage
mass emigration of Italian peasant farmers to Ethiopia under the aegis of the
national war veterans' association. Chapter 5 then takes up the next attempt to
promote mass settlement through developing peasant recruiting agencies directed to
different regions within Italy: the Romagna, Puglia, and Veneto. Chapter 6
considers government attempts to promote capital intensive farming of various
kinds ranging from small mixed-farms to large plantations. Finally, Chapter 7
discusses the different steps which Ethiopia's Italian rulers took to encourage
Ethiopian farmers themselves to produce the goods which the Italians wanted. Each
chapter draws on an impressive range of documentary materials, and, very
occasionally, on interviews. My one criticism is that the preceding discussion does
not prepare us so well for the conclusions, stimulating as they are, as it might.

Building of an Empire should meet the oft-proclaimed need of Africanists

for accessible books on Ethiopia. It discusses themes of universal relevance to the
history of the continent in the earlier twentieth century. Haile Mariam caters to that
need by drawing the relevant comparisons to British land policy in Kenya and to a
variety of colonial cotton-growing schemes. The book is also a cautionary tale of
relevance to more recent periods of Ethiopian history. I was struck by how much
the arrogance and impatience of Fascist land and agricultural policies foreshadowed
the practice of Ethiopia's communist rulers in the late 1970s and 1980s. Haile
Mariam's book discusses a question of central importance to Ethiopia today: what
role can government play in the promotion of agricultural development? Implicitly it
draws attention to the need for follow-up studies addressed to the 1940s, 1950s,
and 1960s. In conclusion, a useful book, essential reading for all Ethiopianists and
heartily recommended to scholars concerned with land and agricultural development
in twentieth century Africa.

DONALD CRUMMEY
University of Illinois

This content downloaded from 104.239.165.217 on Mon, 20 Jun 2016 11:23:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms