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Summary: "The Prince" in Ethiopia...
Comment: Ryszard Kapuscinski has lead a remarkable life, much of it related in his autobiographical work, "Ebene." In part by inclination, in part by necessity, he saw so much more of Africa, in particular, than literally scores of Western journalists on 5-star hotel expense accounts. Coming from a country in what was once called the "Eastern bloc," Poland, his much more basic expense account did not provide a comfortable, air-conditioned bed each night, and the gossip at the bar. And he, as well as we are richer for that. Kapuscinski also managed to locate himself in the right place at the right time -- the "Holy Grail" of good journalists --and was able to report on the fall of the Shah in Iran, as well as the collapse of Portuguese rule in Angola in 1974. But the story of the reign and fall of the "King of Kings," Haile Selassie, in Ethiopia, also in 1974, is my favorite book.
A man with as many august titles as Haile Selassie might object to a reference as lowly as a mere "Prince," but I am referring Niccolo Machiavelli's classic work on rulers and their judicious, cynical use of power. For that is the essence of Kapuscinski's work, and I think it is a serious mistake, which some other reviewers made, to assume this is only about "totalitarian regimes."
Kapuscinski says that via a vital contact who used to work in the regime of Haile Selassie he was able to interview a number of his former functionaries who had survived the purge (and executions) after the revolution. Via these interviews, he reconstructs a telling, comic, and tragic portrait of palace life. The book's format is these interviews, along with the author's own words in italicized sections. Other reviews, notably Smith-Jones criticized this technique, and certainly literally, he is correct. Clearly Kapuscinski has placed these interviews in a standard style and format, including the use of pompous titles for Selassie. No doubt too there was some embroidery, but the essential points on the human condition ring true. In particular I was struck by the manner in which Selassie gathered "intelligence" on his country -- by walking in the garden each morning, and having his three intelligence heads hiding behind bushes, then running up behind the Emperor, whispering all the events of the last 24 hours. Each of the three hated the other two, and feared they might reveal something that he had not. Selassie is silent in this whole process. When I read this book for the first time I was working for a true megalomaniac who gathered his "intelligence" in a similar fashion - through mutual antagonistic sources.
Kapuscinski's short book is rich with similar anecdotes on the maintenance, and finally the delusions of palace life. A small sampling include the fact that Selassie himself was once "in the crowd," hoping the current Emperor would recognize him; folk singer Miriam Makeba was brought to Ethiopia to sing at an African Congress for the sum of $25,000; the sad fate of the first attempted coup against him by the Neway brothers in 1960; the learning of a second language, that of evasion, the art of saying nothing, which all citizens accomplished (p94)-- as an epigraph for the later Kapuscinski quotes Stendhal "Courtiers of all ages feel one great need; to speak in such a way that they do not say anything"; and the manner in which the revolution was finally accomplished -- always in the "name" of the Emperor.
As for parallels with America's own condition, consider that when the peasants were starving up north, the Palace felt the most important aspect of the relief effort was that the Emperor show "his concern;" as opposed to taking any effective actions. Sound like New Orleans? Ethiopia's treasure was used time and time again to support the "dignitaries." Sound like a Wall Street bailout?
On a personal note, I spent 5 days in Ethiopia in 1984, still have a baseball cap I was given celebrating the "10th Anniversary of the Ethiopian revolution." Sadly though, Mengistu proved to be just as much a rapacious thug. At the time the country was firmly in the communist orbit--large billboards proclaiming allegiance to Marx, Lenin et al. We were passing a building with a very ordering line of a couple hundred people waiting. A guard saw our white faces, unusual at the time in the country, came to get us, placed us at the head of the line, and that was how we saw the extensive collection of exhibits in the "Haile Selassie crimes museum."
Given an assumed liberty or two in style, this is the best book we will ever have on the rule and delusions of one of the world's unique leaders.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Interesting if not gripping
Comment: An oral biography of Haile Selassie's reign. Not really a page-turner, but it's fascinating listening to all these people who used to work in his palace double-speaking about him; they're still scared to say anything negative about him, so they say things like "Stupid peasants! Can't they see that by not giving them food, His Ineffable Highness was encouraging them to focus on the simple joys of life?"
Worth reading if you're interested in His Ineffable Majesty. Short, too.
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Summary: Hopelessly biased and regrettably misleading
Comment: What is most astonishing in Kapuscinski's book is not the fact that it was written in a more than evident biased tone with no regard whatsoever to Ethiopia's history and achievements throughout the 20th century, it is rather the fact that the book was deemed to deserve many a positive review. A a journalistic work, it is poorly written and conveys the impression that all the author wished was to defame one of the most important heads of state of the past century and justify the revolution that overthrew him. As for the style, a second-hand copy of P.G. Wodehouse revisiting the Duke of Saint-Simon, it is a regrettable example of how cynicism may be employed as a replacement for the truth of historical facts. As an historical document, it is null. It must be reminded that Selassie was a dynastic monarch, not an opportunist, that he played quite an important role in the League of Nations and through his political ability secured the very existence of Ethiopia as a country. Also, to keep a fair perspective of his reign and of his time it must be recalled that until the 1930's much of Ethiopia was an unexplored frontier, where one would still find native warriors drinking their foes' blood and eating their hearts, as one may notice in one of Wilfred Thesiger early books. Briefly, the Emperor is a sad example of how widespread ignorance of African history makes possible that a badly written and poorly researched piece of political propaganda - serving both imperialist and communist interest -may be the object of so many undeserved prints, translations and awards.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Deap Observation
Comment: A great insight to a problematic past through the eyes of the directly effected. Selassie is seen as a God to some and an evil man by many, you can see both sides through these stories of real people who lived in Ethiopia during his reign.
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Summary: Insight into the imperial palace
Comment: This book reminds me of two novels I have read, Autumn of the Patriarch by G. G. Marquez, and Rene Leys by Victor Segalen. They both are about the labyrinthine palaces of out of touch emperors, a sort of politics mixed with overtones of Gormenghast. The Emperor is not a novel, however, it is reportage -- the author was a Polish foreign correspondent who interviewed the palace attendants of Selassie after the Emperor had been deposed. It makes Selassie out to be a idealistic but somewhat corrupt aristocrat who was simply too tired to put up a fight against what became the savage Mengistu regime.
I would differ from the other two reviews in different ways. First I wanted to say that even though he is critical, the author is in some ways sympathetic to Selassie. He realizes that at the beginning Selassie was a force for good. And I think saying that "if enlightenment means killing 50,000+ citizens of your own nation, I am again grateful that we in America have not yet had an 'enlightened' leader...." is sort of missing the fact that we've had leaders recently who have killed over ten times that many people, though they are citizens of other nations.
But the other review is nationalistic and doesn't engage the book at all. I know that after the Derg and then Meles, many Ethiopians look back to Selassie as a "Golden Age" ruler -- and that is a useful myth. But although I think that there are probably some fanciful parts of the book, as far as I can tell this is mostly based on real interviews. Selassie was not a perfect ruler, and you can't criticize a foreign reporter for not buying into a nationalist myth.
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