Edition: First Edition, Second Printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harcourt Brace & Company, Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780151287710ISBN:0151287716
Description: Good. No Jacket. Remainder. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. A good hardcover copy, banged up a bit. The binding is solid but leans a little. The covering of black cloth on the spine and tan paper on the boards shows considerable wear, with bumper corners and rubbed edges. The text is clean and unmarked. ------------------------------------------------------------This account of the last days of Haile Selassie's reign in Ethiopa is brilliant journalism that can be read like an allegory of dictatorial ... read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: PENGUIN BOOKS LTD Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9780141188034ISBN:0141188030
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 192 pages. (192 pages) after the deposition of haile selassie in 1974, which ended the ancient rule of the abyssinian monarchy, ryszard kapuscinski travelled to ethiopia and sought out surviving courtiers to tell their stories. this work depicts the lavish, corrupt world they had known-from the rituals, hierarchies and intrigues at court to the vagaries of a ruler. (Paperback) read more
Edition: First American Edition
Binding: Quarter Cloth
Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc, San Diego/New York/London
Date Published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780151287710ISBN:0151287716
Description: Good in Good jacket. 5¾" by 8½" Quarter black cloth over tan boards, silver titling. Cover edges discolored, rubbed; page edges lightly spotted, name on top edge; jacket edgeworn with short tears and associated creasing, mended with nonarchival tape. Text clean; 164 pages. Kapuscinski's stunning study of autocracy and its decay, as experienced in Haile Selassie's Ethiopia. read more
Edition: First Edition, Second Printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harcourt Brace & Company, Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780151287710ISBN:0151287716
Description: Very Good in Very Good jacket. Remainder. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. A very good hardcover copy, lightly used. The binding is solid and square. The covering of black cloth on the spine and tan paper on the boards shows only very mild wear, chiefly some light shelf-rubbing at the base of the spine. The text is clean and unmarked. The dustjacket has a pair of half-inch tears at the top of the spine and is lightly rubbed. ------------------------------------------------------------This account of the ... read more
Description: Good. Book shows minor use. Cover and Binding have minimal wear and the pages have only minimal creases. A tradition of southern quality and service. All books guaranteed at the Atlanta Book Company. read more
Edition: Second Printing
Binding: Cloth Spine Over Boards
Publisher: Wolfe/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York
Date Published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780151287710ISBN:0151287716
Description: Fine in Fine jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Hardcover in original non price-clipped dust-jacket. 164pp., Translated from the Polish by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand. The story of emperor Halle Selassie's fall from power, seen in Poland as an allegory of dictatorship in general and an influential contribiutor to the reform movement then underway in the late 1970's. First edition, second printing. A fine copy in a fine dust-jacket. read more
Description: New. PLEASE NOTE: All books are promptly imported from the UK using DHL or Royal Mail international mail WITH TRACKING NUMBER. D elivery is typically 5-10 working days. Please do not select expedited shipping. Professional and reliable bookseller (est.1987). read more
Edition: First Vintage Books Edition
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Vintage Books, New York
Date Published: 1984
Description: Softcover. Good condition. Translated from the polish by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand. Haile Selassie, his most Puissant Majesty and distinguished highness the Emporer of Ethiopia, reigned from 1930 until he was overthrown by the army in 1974. While the fighting still raged, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Poland's leading foreign correspondent, traveled to Ethiopia to seek out and interview Selassie's servants and closest associates on how the Emporer had ruled and why he fell. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harcourt
Date Published: 1983-03
ISBN-13:9780151287710ISBN:0151287716
Description: Good. Excellent customer service. May ship from alternate location depending on your zip code and availability. Satisfaction guaranteed! ! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Quartet
Date Published: 1983
Description: Fair in Good jacket. Ex-Library Ex library, usual stamps, first free page removed, dust jacket in protective sleeve, pages clean. read more
Description: New. PLEASE NOTE: All books are promptly shipped from our UK warehouse using Royal Mail or DHL. International Priority mail for non-UK deliveries. Delivery is typically 2-4 working days for UK delivery. Heavier or more expensive books are shipped with a TRACKING NUMBER. Professional and reliable bookseller (est.1987). read more
"The most penetrating, compelling book on the nature of power and the inevitability of it's dissolution within the framework of human nature, Kapuscinski's book should be taught -before- Maciavelli in any self-respecting Political Science class."
"The Emperor baffles any ready description. A Polish journalist, Ryszard Kapuscinski, renders an account of the last schizophrenic years of Ethiopia's ancient kingdom and the demise of it emperor, whose ways are not our ways, to say the least. Reviews may not suffice to say exactly why or how the book works, but I'll add mine anyway to the others that have noted its mystique.
The book's structure takes a straightforward path. The author interviews courtiers, associates and servants of the Emperor Haile Selassie in the months just after his dethronement. Selassie's reign is recounted in parts, each starting with Kapuscinski's observations about the situation at hand, followed by comments from the relevant courtiers to furnish color, detail and insight.
The tapestry woven from these remarks and the writer's added observations depict an esoteric mindset. I've often wondered: When humans left their tribes to create the world's first civilizations, what were those societies like? I don't mean the art they created or the decrees of their leaders - I mean, did the people think and act like us? The fabric of the story gives us that answer, for Ethiopia was just such a place. And the answer is a mind-boggling no.
What we find is a land so ancient it's not even medieval, a place where even feudalism would represent progress. But make no mistake, it is still a fully developed civilization, not some savage prehistoric amalgam. Kapuscinski knows he has stumbled into something unique, a culture whose primeval foundation neither lends nor refuses itself to any obvious interpretation. In this emperor, this court, and this society, a primordial human drama demands its stage.
Such a provenance makes conclusions or judgments about Ethiopia impossible to categorize. The declivities of class and hierarchy within this kingdom exceed anything known to man. An antediluvian social stucture showcases the raw exercise of power at its stripped-down worst, absent any modern guile. By design, mediocrity trumps merit as a tool to balance power and maintain social order, turning the country into a kind of Ayn Rand novel come to life. Such an order inevitably clashes with the outside. But more decisive are the its own internal contradictions.
The several speakers whose contributions build the story relate the details with elegance. In these vignettes lie much of the book's narrative power; the interviewees tell what they know with a delicate economy that, page-per-page, conveys more detail, plot and feeling than any book I can recall. Here's one such description, of the increasingly opaque autocracy:
"... People seemed unable to control things; things existed and ceased to exist in their own malicious ways, slipping through people's hands. Everyone felt helpless before the seemingly magic force by which things autonomously appeared and disappeared, and nobody knew how to master or break that force."
This speaker later accentuates the dissipation gripping Selassie's final decade:
"...Even conversation deteriorated, losing its vigor and momentum. Conversations started but somehow never seemed to be completed. They always reached an invisible but perceptible point, beyond which silence fell. The silence said, Everything is already known and clear, but clear in an obscure way, known unfathomably, dominating by being beyond helping. Having confirmed this truth by a moment of silence, the conversation changed its direction and moved on to a different subject, a trivial, second-rate, second-hand subject."
The elliptical way the speakers tell their stories adds to the book's kaleidoscopic dazzle. Their many points of view make truth a perspectival quest. No immediate verdict emerges upon the rule of Ethiopia's last emperor; his sycophants both attack and defend his rule, and they're right in each case. Yet all the while the reader can detect a bigger picture getting lost in the details. Under Kapuscinski's journalistic guidance the gripping reality of this society emerges to recruit one's sense of the grotesque. This regime outclasses modern ones in some ways: No violent purges or collective bloodbaths ever occur. But the extremes of hierarchy leave the tragic fates of the many to deface a benighted land.
Kapuscinski tells an amazing story amazingly, and his journalist's sense of having discovered an unprecedented subject is dead-on right. The writing speaks for itself. Its object is unique. The story is a spellbinding discovery. The Emperor, in short, has all the qualities of a perfect book. You cannot go wrong choosing it to read."
""The Emperor" is Kapuscinski's collection of first-hand accounts from former members of Haile Selassie's regime in Ethiopia. After the emperor was dethroned in 1974 at the age of 90, many of his closest advisors were either killed, imprisoned, or went into hiding. With the help of a trusted source, Kapuscinski carefully and discreetly sought out the remaining members of Selassie's court still residing in Addis Ababa. They tell a story of an autocrat who believed himself to be kindly and mindful of his subjects but in reality led a primitive regime based on loyalty at all costs. I couldn't help but think "the end is near" as I read about Selassie's advisors' schemes to stand close to the emperor, have their names mentioned a certain number of times in hearings, rat out another advisor to win the Emperor's trust, etc. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands perished from famine in the northern provinces. A captivating look at the inside of an immature and backwards monarchy."
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