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For too long, too many historians have been too much concerned with impersonal forces, underlying structures and long-term developments. Now, 'people' are back. In a post-modern age it is easier to appreciate the decisive role played by individuals, as they ride their luck and seize their opportunity to bend the world to their will. As these essays by twelve eminent historians demonstrate, biography is too important to be left to the amateurs. Among the rich variety of strong characters analysed here are an Austrian emperor, a German kaiser, a Victorian prime minister, an Italian dictator, and an American president. Dedicated to a master-biographer, Derek Beales, the range and quality of this collection will stimulate, inform and entertain everyone interested in the history of the modern world

Hawani's story / Hawani Debella and Aneesa Kassam -- The Development of Oromo political consciousness from 1958 to 1994 / Herbert S. Lewis -- The Survival and reconstruction of Oromo national identity / Mekuria Bulcha -- The Development of Oromo nationalism / Mohammed Hassen -- Perceiving Oromo : 'Galla' in the great narrative of Ethiopia / Jan Hultin -- Oromumma : tradition, consciousness and identity / Gemetchu Megerssa -- Re-examining the Galla/Oromo relationship : the stranger as a structural topic / Thomas Zitelmann -- Being Gabra today / Paolo Tablino -- Shifting identities along resource borders : becoming and continuing to be Boorana Oromo / Gufu Oba -- The political viability of Boorana pastoralism : a discussion of some features of the political system of the Borana Pastoralists of Southern Ethiopia / Johan Helland -- Power's ambiguity or the political significance of Gada / Marco Bassi -- Sources of life and identity / Gudrun Dahl -- Towards a comparative ethnography of the Oromo : the importance of affines / P.T.W. Baxter -- Keeping the peace of the Waso Boorana : becoming Oromo through religious diversification / Mario I. Aguilar -- Traditional and modern cooperatives among the oromo / Tesema Taá -- The becoming of place : a Tulama-Oromo region of Northern Shoa / Odd Eirik Arnesen -- Adopting an ambiguous position : Oromo relationships with strangers / Hector Blackhurst -- United and divided : Boorana and Gabaro among the Macha Oromo in Western Ethiopia / Alessandro Triulzi -- The Poetics of Nationalism : a poem by Jarso Waaqo Qoot'o / Abdullahi A. Shongolo