From a war-torn and famine-plagued country at the beginning of the 1990s, Ethiopia is today emerging as one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa. This Oxford Handbook focuses on structural transformation to understand Ethiopia's unique model of development.

In the past, and to a degree still today, the northern Ethiopian Orthodox churches were the major and, often, the sole depositories of manuscripts and documents dealing with property transactions of private persons. All kinds of property ranging from slaves to residential sites to houses to land...