Ian L. Campbell

Ian Leslie Campbell (b 22 February 1945) is an international consultant on community development and environment and a historian specialising in Ethiopia with a focus on the Second Italo-Ethiopian War occupation of Ethiopia (1936-1941). 
== Education ==
Campbell was born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. He earned a BSc (Hons.) at the University of Leicester in Mathematical Statistics, Economics, and Japan's History. 
==Career==
Ian Campbell began his work in East Africa in 1968 in a commercial capacity, founding and managing various consultancies and advising the United Nations Environment Programme (United Nations Environment Programme|UNEP). His career in Ethiopian history began in 1990 as a collaboration with Ethiopianist Professor Richard Pankhurst (Ethiopianist)|Richard Pankhurst (son of suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst), to research Ethiopia's cultural heritage. 
His first book on Italian colonialism in Ethiopia was The Plot to Kill Graziani (Addis Ababa University Press in 2010), a detailed analysis of the assassination attempt on Rodolfo Graziani that took place on 19 February 1937. 
His second book, The Massacre of Debre Libanos (AAU Press, 2014), is a comprehensive report of the premeditated massacre of members of the Ethiopian Coptic Church in the monastery village of Debre Libanos in Italian East Africa between 21 and 29 May 1937. Campbell's findings inspired the docu-film Debre Libanos, by the Italian Catholic Church television channel Tv2000, and were featured in the award-winning documentary If Only I Were That Warrior.
His third book was The Addis Ababa Massacre (Hurst, London & Oxford University Press, New York, 2017), an hour-by-hour account of the atrocities following the attack on Graziani referred to as Yekatit 12. The book was praised by international reviewers, such as Financial Times (Best History Book of the Year), The Economist ("... meticulous work"), and Times Literary Supplement ("... a horrific tale, told with verve and a sense of moral passion, but also with the meticulous skill of a detective and a historian"). The Addis Ababa Massacre was translated into Italian, Il massacro di Addis Abeba (Rizzoli, 2018), winning praise from multiple Italian reviewers, and raising a debate in Italy about the nature of the occupation of Ethiopia.
== Bibliography ==
* La repressione fascista in Etiopia: la riconstruzione del massacro di Debra Libanos, with Degife Gabre-Tsadik, in Studi Piacentini: Rivista dell’Istituto storico della Resistenza e dell’età contemporanea, Ed. Prof. Del Boca, A., No. 21, 1997, Piacenza, Italy, pp. 79-128.
*La Repressione Fascista in Ethiopia: Il Massacro Segreto di Engecha, in Studi Piacentini: Rivista dell’Istituto storico della Resistenza e dll’età contemporanea, Ed. Prof. Del Boca, A., No. 24-25, 1998-1999, pp. 23-46
*Ethiopia 1937: The Plot to Kill Graziani – The Attempted Assassination of Mussolini’s Viceroy, Addis Ababa University Press, 2010, reprinted 2015, 
*The Massacre of Debre Libanos, Ethiopia 1937: The Story of One of Fascism’s Most Shocking Atrocities, Addis Ababa University Press, 2014, 
* The Addis Ababa Massacre – Italy’s National Shame, London: Hurst Publishers and New York: Oxford University Press, 2017, hardback , paperback 2019, 
*Il Massacro di Addis Abeba – Una Vergogna Italiana – Rizzoli, Milan, 2018, 
== Awards and Honours ==
* Financial Times Best History Book of 2017, awarded for The Addis Ababa Massacre – Italy’s National Shame.
* Award for Distinguished Service to Justice, for Contribution through his books to the knowledge on the Fascist War Crimes in Ethiopia, Global Alliance for Justice – The Ethiopian Cause, Jan. 2017