Duality and Duplicity in Euro-Ethiopian historical relations

Abstract

Suffering the professional condition of an anthropologist (a class that understands little of diachrony and chronology), I believe I can be excused by my fellow historians and by the general public, for beginning my comment on the ancient Euro-Ethiopian relations, by bringing to memory the short period in the late fifties and early sixties of the last century when the Estado Novo (or “New State”, which we in Portugal now call the Ancient Regime) and the government of Haile Selassie ephemerally tried to develop diplomatic ties, based on a mixture of political pragmatism and historical romanticism.