The book opens with a review of Ethiopian prehistory, showing how the Ethiopian section of the African Rift Valley has come to be seen as the "cradle of humanity".

Richard Pankhurst who has lived in Ethiopia for over thirty years, is Professor at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa. His most recent books include A History of Ethiopian Towns from the Middle Ages to the Early Nineteenth Century (1982) and A Social History of Ethiopia (1990), and History of the Ethiopian Borderlands: Essays in Regional History (1997).