Board of Trustees, Boston University

Documents on Ethiopian Politics. Volume I: The Decline of Menelik II to the Emergence of Ras
Tafari, Later Known as Haile Selassie, 1910-1919 by Borg G. Steffanson; Ronald K. Starrett
Review by: Richard Caulk
The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 10, No. 4 (1977), pp. 650-651
Published by: Boston University African Studies Center
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/216936 .
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650 BOOKREVIEWS

DOCUMENTS ON ETHIOPIAN POLITICS. VOLUME I: THE

DECLINE OF MENELIK II TO THE EMERGENCE OF RAS
TAFARI, LATER KNOWN AS HAILE SELASSIE, 1910-1919.
EditedbyBorgG. SteffansonandRonaldK. Starrett.Salisbury,North
Carolina:DocumentaryPublications, 1976. Pp. iii, 231.

The fifty documentsfrom the U.S. NationalArchives publishedin this

volume are of greatlyvaryingusefulness. The strugglefor powerwhich
followed Menilek's paralysisand retirementfrom governmentin 1909
in fact continued until the future Hayle Sellase became negus(king) in
1928 and then emperor (neguse negest)in 1930. Accounts of the first
decade of the contest for the successionare rich enough in controversy
to justify furtherdocumentation,however, and it is a relief to find that
the editors of Documentson EthiopianPolitics have indeed chosen
reportswhich deal with Ethiopianpoliticsratherthanwith the activities
of foreignersor the formalitiesof diplomacy.
Unfortunately, much of the story which these documents tell has
already been pieced together by writers drawingon more extensive,
first-handrecordsof the British.1Once the consulate in Addis Ababa
was closed in 1914, Americanreportsoften glossed Britishdocuments
or, when the Americanconsul at Aden visited Addis Ababa, repeated
what the Britishand other resident diplomatssaid (pp. 98, 94-95, 112-
118, 141). Such second-handand second-ratematerialneed not have
been speciallyreproduced,as many of the State Department'sfiles on
Ethiopiaare availablecheaplyon microfilmfrom the U.S. Government
PrintingOffice. Nor have the editors troubledto provide aids to using
their selections by explaining the nature of the files in the National
Archives or why reportscross-referencedin the inclusions have been
deleted (for example, pp. 17-19, 23). It must be hoped that any future
volumes will retainnormaleditorialparaphernalia.One regretstoo that
the editorschose to publishmaterialsfrom the poorerveins of the State
Department'spaperson Ethiopiacoveringfamiliarinformationinstead
of tapping the rich materials from the post-war period, when U.S.
representatives were in the center of Ethiopian politics, military
reorganization,and economic development schemes.
This ratherthin collection has some interestingmoments, as when
the future Hayle Sellase tells a visitingAmericanconsul in 1919 that he
saw WoodrowWilson as the one truly disinterested friend of a weak
countrysurroundedby the Europeanvictorsof WorldWarI (p. 166), or
when this same visitorforwardsfor the presidentan appealin the name

1See Leonard Mosley, Haile Selassie: The Conquering Lion (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,
1964), and the more scholarlyworkby HaroldMarcus, TheLifeand Timesof MenelikII.
Ethiopia1844-1913 (London, 1975), ch. 9, "The Abortive Reign of Lij Iyasu: 1910-
1916," 249-281,partsof whichare derivedfromhis BostonUniversityPh.D. dissertation
of 1964 and appearedin printas early as 1970 in the Journalof AfricanHistory.

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 BOOK REVIEWS 651

of EthiopianMuslims claimingrights as a subjectnationality(pp. 222-

225). One must always welcome the publicationof original Amharic
letters (pp. 133, 136), but the scrawlsof a crackpotEthiopiancon man
claimingto be a long-lostTigreanpretenderto the imperialthronewhile
seeking "loans" from the American consul are valueless (pp. 71-88).
Perhapsreportson the sale of Americansheeting would have extracted
from the American archives of this primitive period in U.S. involve-
ment in northeast Africa information about Ethiopia on which
Americanconsuls were expert. If future volumes are to assist research,
their contents must be selected with more careand presentedin a more
scholarlyfashion.

RICHARD CAULK
University of California, Los Angeles

POLITICSOF DECOLONIZATION:KENYA EUROPEANS AND

THE LAND ISSUE 1960-1965. By Gary Wasserman.London and
New York:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1976. Pp. x, 225. $22.50.

Where Europeanrule in Africawas accompaniedby white,settlement,

the result was a particularlyvirulent form of colonialism.Competition
for scarce resourcesand racismproducedpolicies of racialsegregation
and repressionwhich structuredthe political,economic, and social life
of the colony. In southern Africa these policies have proven better
entrenchedthan colonialismitself, but even when they ended with the
demise of colonialrule they have left an unfortunatelegacy.Such is the
case in Kenya. Here the government has destroyed the racially
repressivepolicies of the colonial period, but has done little to change
the inequities of the political-economicsystem it inherited from the
settlers.If ordinaryKenyans,the Wananchi,are any betteroff now than
during colonial days, it is because their leaders are much better at
managingthe system than the settlers were.
Politicsof Decolonization:KenyaEuropeansand the Land Issue 1960-
1965, by Gary Wasserman, is the latest of a growing school of
historiographywhich examines Kenya as a neocolonial state.1 In this
book, based on his Ph.D. dissertation,the author expands upon two
earlierarticleson the same topic.2Wassermanposits that the leadersof
1To date, the best and most comprehensiveexample of this school is Colin Leys's
Underdevelopment in Kenya: The Political Economy of Neo-Colonialism 1964-1971
(Berkeley, 1974).
2GaryWasserman,"The IndependenceBargain:Kenya Europeansand the Land
Issue, 1960-1962," Journal of CommonwealthPolitical Studies, XI, 2 (July, 1973), 99-120;
"Continuityand Counter-Insurgency:
The Role of LandReformin DecolonizingKenya,
1962-70," Canadian Journal of African Studies, VII, 1 (1973), 133-148.

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