Feasting on History

Ethiopia and the Orientalists

James De Lorenzi

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English

Columbia University Press
15 July 2025

General & world history; European history; African history; Colonialism & imperialism; National liberation & independence, post-colonialism

Series: Columbia Studies in International and Global History

During the brutal Italian occupation of Ethiopia (1936-1941), the country descended into endless counterinsurgency and mass violence, which specifically targeted local intellectuals with the sanction of Italy's leading experts. Yet these atrocities followed decades of dialogue between Ethiopian and Italian researchers, and in the postcolonial era, their successors continued to debate Ethiopia's past and future as survivors and perpetrators. This historical reckoning unfolded against the backdrop of Third World liberation, disputed colonial guilt, and the search for postcolonial justice.

Feasting on History is a wide-ranging intellectual history of the Italian-Ethiopian relationship, told through the intertwined lives of Heruy Wäldä Sellasé, an Ethiopian writer and civil servant, and Enrico Cerulli, an Italian Orientalist and colonial official. It takes place on the battlefields and detention sites of fascist empire, within the evolving institutions of the international system, and throughout the interlinked intellectual worlds of Europe, Africa, and the African diaspora. James De Lorenzi documents the violence perpetrated by experts across these spaces as well as the pioneering Ethiopian effort to address the crimes of empire through international law. He also explores a distinctive European tradition of Africa-focused Orientalism and its critical reception by Ethiopian, African, and Black American scholars, reconstructing a bold multilingual commentary on colonial knowledge, self-determination, and the global color line.

Challenging conventional narratives of African and European intellectual history, Feasting on History vividly illuminates the links among weaponized research, colonial trauma, and the modern international order.

By: James De Lorenzi
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780231217767
ISBN 10: 0231217765
Series: Columbia Studies in International and Global History
Pages: 464
Publication Date: 15 July 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: Feasts of History 1. The Power of Tradition 2. Mysterious Magic 3. Reading Philology in Addis Ababa Part II: Imperial Andromeda 4. Ferragosto 5. Mäskäräm 6. “Cerulli and His Ilk” Part III: Years of Hardship 7. The Chronicler of Asinara 8. Survival in Shäwa 9. Bath and Dhanaane Part IV: Dead Reckoning 10. Case 7887 11. Field Operations Conclusion Glossary Transliteration and Dates List of Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index

James De Lorenzi is associate professor of history at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. He is the author of Guardians of the Tradition: Historians and Historical Writing in Ethiopia and Eritrea (2015) and coauthor of The Many Lives of Täsfa Ṣeyon: An Ethiopian Intellectual in Early Modern Rome (2024).

Reviews for Feasting on History: Ethiopia and the Orientalists

An outstanding study and timely book. Meticulously researched and authoritatively written. De Lorenzi goes beyond conventional portrayals, illustrating how postwar Ethiopians’ demand for accountability and reparation for Italy’s war crimes were derailed by an international order unwilling to prosecute “former” colonial administrators turned-allies. Braiding Ethiopian, Italian and Black Internationalist perspectives, this book highlights the interplay of the politics of “expertise,” race, national and diasporic intellectual contributions to the study of international law and war crimes. -- Professor of Political Science, University of Missouri - St. Louis