Haile Selassie’s Government serves as a gripping chronicle of the swift and merciless replacement of Ethiopian imperial rule by military junta. Forty years since its publication, the lasting appeal of Haile Sellassie’s Government lies in its ability to truthfully capture a fallen political order in a perspective that is not only informative in its revealing of the structural weaknesses that lead to the collapse of the regime, but also evocative in its detailing of the traumas that struck the twilight years both of Haile-Selassie and his imperial government order.

“[Christopher Clapham] studied, interviewed, and observed in Ethiopia while lecturing at its Law School, and has brilliantly synthesized an imposing mass of material. Certainly, Haile-Selassie’s Government is the best scholarly description of some key institutions of contemporary Ethiopia, of the modus operandi of the Emperor and his higher officials, and of the forces which influence much government behaviour.”

— James C. N. Paul, The Journal of Modern African Studies. Cambridge University Press

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“It is not enough to say that Clapham’s book is first rate. Its contributions go far beyond Africanist concerns. I would regard it as a valuable work for anyone in comparative political systems, and I would urge that it be read by historians in spite of its preoccupation with the current.”

— A. A. Castagno, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Sage publication

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“The Empire of Ethiopia is as lost in the vastness of its mountain highlands as it is lost in the literature of history and political science…the promise of [Christopher Clapham’s] book is that it is the first to penetrate into the power structure of this area…”

— John M. Cohen, Africa Today. Indiana University Press

Christopher Clapham is a specialist in African Studies, particularly interested by Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, but also Liberia and Sierra Leone. He has a vast teaching experience that he acquired as a lecturer at the Universities of Addis Abba (1966-1967), Manchester (1968-1971), and Lancaster (1989-2002). He currently teaches at the Center of African Studies of the University of Cambridge. His main publications are Africa and the International System (Cambridge University Press, 2002), African Guerrillas (James Currey, 1998), Transformation and Continuity in Revolutionary Ethiopia (Cambridge University Press, 1988), Third World Politics (Croom Helm,1985), etc. Since 1988, he has been the editor of the Journal of Modern African Studies published by Cambridge University Press.