At the risk of generalization and simplicity, it can be said that social History has come now to displace political History, particularly since the 1974 Ethiopian revolution. In the tradition of political History, we have literature on biography of emperors, and its method was source critic aimed to decide whether each assertion made was right or wrong. Chronicles, narrative account of kings, have made their imposition on such type of Historical research, besides to the contemporary environment that surrounded the Historian himself. The Ethiopian student movement, the spread of left ideology, and finally the revolution, among other things, brought about change from political to social History. I think there are two rules that are central and general to all sciences.
Scientific presentation makes for any one possible to criticise and take a reasonable stand.
Its language and definitions are clear, its observation are controlled and free from internal contradiction. A Historical research carried in such productive, communicable way has little problem to give us new knowledge. The column, Interpretation of the Past has an ambition to adopt system analysis perspective. By system is meant a group of elements that are inter linked by certain rules and principles. The two parts are an articulated set, and the logic of articulation is treated concretely through identification of the principles, the causal links, that combined and related the two set of elements.