Historic and Ethnic Development of Ethiopia

Essay from the year 2002 in the subject Geography / Earth Science - Regional Geography, grade: 2,0, University of Trier, course: Regional Seminary Ehtiopia, language: English, abstract: Regarding the history of african nations, Ethiopia is commonly considered as one of the most unique countries of Africa. One of the reasons for its originality and cultural richness is the fact that Ehtiopia, during his long history as a sovereign state has never been colonized by any of the European powers. But nowadays in the western world Ethiopia is unfortunately rather associated with naturals disasters and wars. Most of these wars, which constitute the main cleavage lines of inner-ethiopian conflicts were fought among ethnic groups. To have a better understanding of those conflicts as well as towards a better understanding of the current demographic dynamics it could be very helpful to have a brief look at Ethiopian history. In order to describe the main turning points of Ethiopia's rich history we should have an idea about its ethnic development. Following that question this presentation is divided in four chapters which also generally mark the four main sections of Ethiopian history: the kingdom of Axum, the modernisation from Emperor Theodore to Emperor Haile Selassie, the marxist period under Haile Mengistu and finally the current situation since 1991.