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The Prester John Test: a Rejoinder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

John M. Cohen
Affiliation:
Harvard Institute for International Development, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Extract

The purpose of my December 1980 Africana note was to identify two major problems in the rapidly growing literature on the Ethiopian revolution: (1) the failure to honour the academic obligation to be exhaustive in the research enterprise; and (2) the tendency of students of the revolution to draw doubtful long-term conclustions on the basis of a brief time-horizon. To illustrate these points I used Peter Koehn's citations on food production and the conclusions he drew from them. Briefly, I noted that he had overlooked at least one important set of data and reached a conclusion that did not hold up over time. The references to new sources in both my note and the reply by Koehn and Brian D'Silva support my argument, for we have now located important, additional studies on production and rainfall, and Koehn has now altered and expanded his conclusions in the face of evidence from a longer time-perspective.

Type
Africana
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

page 520 note 1 For example: U.S. Government, ‘References Tables on Area-Yield-Production of all Grains’, in World Agricultural Situation (Washington, D.C), 12 1980, and Foreign Agricultural Cirular (Washington, D.C.), 16 December 1980 and 28 January 1981.Google Scholar

page 521 note 1 Cf. Henze's, Paul B. use of previously untouched U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency handbooks to illuminate military aid to Ethiopia; ‘Arming the Horn, 1960–1980’, Wilson Center, Smithsonian institute, Working Paper No. 43, Washington, D.C.) This sets in disquieting relief the generalities and errors on this topic which have appeared in recent writings.Google Scholar

page 521 note 2 Cohen, John M. and Sisaye, Seleshi, ‘Research on Socioeconomic Development in Ethiopia: past problems and future issues in rural-urban studies’, Cornell Rural Sociology Bulletin Series, No. 83, Ithaca, 1977.Google Scholar

page 521 note 3 Hess, Robert L., Ethiopia: the modernization of autocracy (Ithaca, 1970), pp. 42–3, my emphasis.Google Scholar