ABSTRACT
Ethiopia is in the unique position of being the only African polity not to have been colonized by the white man and having never been overcome or conquered in its entire history, apart from the brief Italian occupation between 1936 and 1941. In fact Ethiopia, or Abyssinia as it used to be called, had defeated Italy, the encroaching colonial power in the famous battle of Adowa in the year 1896 and during the European 'scramble for Africa', under Emperor Menelik II, it was expanded through conquest, doubling its size. From 1930 to 1974 Ethiopia was governed, indeed totally dominated, by Emperor Haile Selassie I, in what was an autocratic and feudalistic system, reminiscent of those which held sway in medieval Europe.
