Ethnos Oblige: Theory and Evidence presents revelatory findings on the drivers of ethnic identity and related contingencies, as well as suggestions for organizational implications for employee relations, organization behavior, institutional entrepreneurship, and overall business strategy.

Ethnos Oblige: Theory and Evidence presents revelatory findings on the drivers of ethnic identity and related contingencies, as well as suggestions for organizational implications for employee relations, organization behavior, institutional entrepreneurship, and overall business strategy.

Although change management and therefore effective adaptation to environmental complexity is considered a uniquely human cultural activity, the extensive change management literature is largely based on the experiences of organizations in the advanced economies of the West. As the economies of African countries become increasingly open, African organizations will need to be agile in order to adapt and grow in a dynamic, global environment. Currently, there is a dearth of contextualized knowledge on change management within Africa, but this handbook aims to address this by bringing together a wide range of experts to explore organizational change and change management from an African context. The handbook adopts a multidisciplinary (historical, philosophical, processual, and strategic) perspective as well as empirical accounts of change management. It addresses such issues as: What are the external and internal pressures for change? What is the content and process of change management? What are the essentials of effective change management? How can change management be theorized from an African perspective? What sort of leadership can best align with change management demands in an African context? How do organizations build internal change management capability? It is hoped that answers to these questions contained in the handbook will provide a contextualized understanding of change management which African organizations and scholars can leverage to respond to the threats and opportunities inherent in their increasingly dynamic environment. The handbook should constitute an essential reference for academics, researchers, and advanced students of change management, development studies, and African studies, as well as practitioners.

Ethnos needs Logos, especially if it aspires, as every ethnic group does, to become a nation. Logos, not race, allowed the warring tribes of Europe who plundered the last structures of the Roman Empire to coalesce into the nations that constituted Christian Europe. The necessary preparation for German unity was spiritual, and it took a millennium. In Mexico, unity happened by miracle overnight. Juan Diego's tilma, with its depiction of the Virgin Mary, is the symbol of Mexico, the basis for a Mexican culture that has survived the predations of the richer and more powerful neighbor to the north. Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared as a mestiza, a mixture of European and Native American races. She was the cosmic symbol of the race mixing the English feared since the moment they set foot on the soil of the New World. She was the symbol of Mexican identity. She was the symbol of Catholic race-mixing and the antithesis of England's and later America's and still later Germany's ideology of racial superiority. Indeed, when it comes to what the KKK would call "race mixing," Mexico is the rule and not the exception. Even the "racially pure" Germans who attended the Nuremberg rallies were a mixture of the Grauthungi and the Suevi and all of the other now forgotten ethnic groups that overran the Roman Empire and disappeared into each other through intermarriage. For the German nation to come into existence, each of those ethnic groups had to undergo what Hegel would have called "Aufhebung," a dialectical process which simultaneously exalted and maintained their identity. In order to remain the same, you have to change.

Since its publication in the Soviet Union this work has been highly praised by historians and archaeologists around the world. This English translation now makes it available to a wider audience. The author worked closely with the editor and translator, adding much new material, to make this an expanded and revised edition, not just a translation. It is now the most up-to-date and authoritative work available in any language on the history and culture of the Axumite civilization of highland Ethiopia. The Axumites played a major role in trade between the classical world of the Mediterranean and countries bordering the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. With its origins in the civilization of South Arabia, the Axumite Kingdom evolved by the fourth century AD, into one of the most powerful states in contact with the classical world. It took a thousand years for the Axumite Kingdom to run its course. Although it collapsed with the onset of the Medieval period, it profoundly affected the more recent history of Ethiopia. Kobishchanov covers such major topics as political history, political and economic organization, ideology, and the social system. The section on political history reveals unexpected and fascinating details regarding relations between Axum and such major powers as Rome, Byzantium, and Persia. He vividly reports the military expeditions which enabled Axum to carve out an empire extending from Nubia to Somalia, and South Arabia to southern Ethiopia--by which Axum secured total hegemony over the southern half of the Red Sea. With a broad anthropological perspective, the author reconstructs from ancient historical texts the structure and functioning of Axumite culture. In addition to adding new material to various parts of the book, the author has prepared a special appendix which critically discusses the documentary sources available to Axumite scholars. A special feature of the volume is Michels's introductory essay on Axumite archaeology which not only summarizes seventy-five years of excavations but also reports the recent efforts at archaeological interpretation. This book will prove to be of major interest to all concerned with Ancient and Near Eastern History, African history, African archaeology, and Black studies.