Ethiopia and the World 330-1500 CE

This Cambridge Element offers an interdisciplinary introduction to the histories of the Ethiopian and Eritrean highlands from late antiquity to the late medieval period updating traditional Western academic perspectives. Early scholarship often by philologists and religious scholars upheld ''Ethiopia'' as an isolated repository of ancient Jewish and Christian texts. This work reframes the region''s history highlighting the political economic and cultural interconnections of different kingdoms polities and peoples. Utilizing recent advancements in Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies as well as Medieval Studies it reevaluates key instances of contact between ''Ethiopia'' and the world of Afro-Eurasia situating the histories of the Christian Muslim and local-religious or ''pagan'' groups living in the Red Sea littoral and the Eritrean-Ethiopian highlands in the context of the Global Middle Ages.