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The Reformation · 1593
The History of the Galla
Bahrey · 16th century
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What it is
An Ethiopian monk's account of the Oromo migrations, asking why a people with no king or fortress could defeat a Christian empire, and answering that its own society was too unequal to fight.
Why it lasted
A remarkable piece of social analysis from sixteenth-century Africa, explaining military defeat by internal social structure.
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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