This book describes the development of institutions of higher education in Ethiopia and the roles they played in the transformation of traditional Ethiopian society. It shows that although other modernizing agencies such as a standing army, parliament, trade unions, and lower institutions of learning may play significant roles in social and economic change, in Ethiopia the institutions of higher learning, and especially their students, contributed significantly to profound revolution. The study also explains that in Ethiopia, higher education institutions were unable to provide viable political organizations to usher in forms of government that would facilitate progress and the quest for freedom from all forms of oppression, want, and persecution. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 deals with traditional approaches to politics and learning; Part 2 deals with the conception and emergence of modern institutions of higher learning and their interaction with traditional conventions and institutions; and Part 3 covers the postrevolutionary period (since 1974), highlighting the problems confronted, the gains realized, the upheavals precipitated, and the accommodations worked out, or unrealized, between the new political realities and the institutions of higher education. Contains a glossary, a bibliography of 274 listings, and an index. (GLR)