Printed words, imperial journeys, global scholars: Historiography and cosmopolitanism in the Red Sea world, 1800--1935

This dissertation explores global themes in Ethiopian and Eritrean intellectual history, focusing on Amharic historiography and print culture in the modern period. After examining the conventions and significance of the region\u27s earlier traditions of historical scholarship, it considers new and hybrid forms of historical thinking that emerged in the early twentieth century, using these to document how empire, cross-cultural literacy, and print technology transformed the region\u27s intellectual culture. Ultimately, this dissertation suggests that that the urban reformers and scholars behind these trans-regional chronographies, problem-oriented histories, and instructive travel narratives emerged from a deeply cosmopolitan intellectual universe, one that reveals not only a non-Western vision of modernity and progress but also the enduring connections of African, Middle Eastern, and European history.