Ethiopia Photographed

Following the very successful Ethiopia Engraved, an illustrated book of engravings by foreign travellers from 1681 to 1900, Ethiopia Photographed covers the period from the inception of photography in the country up to the Italian Fascist invasion in 1936. The people, terrain, buildings and rulers of Ethiopia - such as Emperor Melenik, Lej Iyasu and Emperor Haile Selassie - make it a highly photogenic country, as this lavishly illustrated book reveals.Situated in lofty, often inaccessible mountains between the Red Sea and the Blue Nile, and extending far into the Horn of Africa, it is a complex and mysterious country which as always exercised an extraordinary fascination for the outside world. The book begins with an introduction which gives a brief history of Ethiopia in this period, and describes the role of photography at this time. The richly captured images of Ethiopia Photographed bear witness to many personalities and places not previously seen and, in many cases, now lost for all time but for the photogenic memories recorded here.

Richard Pankhurst, the founder and first Director of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies of Addis Ababa University, and for ten years the Librarian of the Royal Asiatic Society in London, has lived in Ethiopia for three decades. He has devoted the greater part of his life to the study of Ethiopian history and culture, and has written extensively on these subjects.Denis Gerard is a French agronomist and a long-term resident of Ethiopia, who has been working in regional development in the Afar Region. Among his other professional activities he is coordinator of various projects arising out of a twinning arrangement between Le Blanc-Mesnil, near Paris, and Dabra Berhan, north-east of Addis Ababa. Photography is his passion, especially the reproduction of early images.