Prevail

The Inspiring Story of Ethiopia's Victory over Mussolini's Invasion, 1935-1941

By: Jeff Pearce, Richard Pankhurst - foreword

Narrated by: Tom Parks

It was the war that changed everything, and yet it's been mostly forgotten: in 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia. It dominated newspaper headlines and newsreels. It inspired mass marches in Harlem, a play on Broadway, and independence movements in Africa. As the British Navy sailed into the Mediterranean for a white-knuckle showdown with Italian ships, riots broke out in major cities all over the United States. Italian planes dropped poison gas on Ethiopian troops, bombed Red Cross hospitals, and committed atrocities that were never deemed worthy of a war crimes tribunal. But unlike the many other depressing tales of Africa that crowd book shelves, this is a gripping thriller, a rousing tale of real-life heroism in which the Ethiopians come back from near destruction and win. Tunneling through archive records, tracking down survivors still alive today, and uncovering never-before-seen photos, Jeff Pearce recreates a remarkable era and reveals astonishing new findings. He shows how the British Foreign Office abandoned the Ethiopians to their fate, while Franklin Roosevelt had an ambitious peace plan that could have changed the course of world history had Chamberlain not blocked him with his policy on Ethiopia. And Pearce shows how modern propaganda techniques, the post-war African world, and modern peace movements all were influenced by this crucial conflict a war in Africa that truly changed the world.

Download the accompanying reference guide.©2014 Jeff Pearce. Foreword by Richard Pankhurst (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Top book! Loved it.

Well researched and well written. Highly recommended. The book flows so nicely. A wonderful page-turner!!!

Very inclusive

Very broad and inclusive. The only thing is the audio reader couldn’t pronounce Ethiopian names and places correctly. I am from Ethiopia and most of the time I didn’t understand people’s names and place from the audio. The reader should put enough effort to rehearse the names.

Details matter

As an Ethiopian American, I value the global appeal this story has to fill in often neglected rise of global African diaspora consciousness at that particular time. Jeff pulls together an incredible amount of information to tell a story which has equal value today as it did almost more than 80 years ago. Thank you!

besy book on the subject

great story about the leadup invasion and liberation of etheopia in the 1930s through 1940s

Fascinating untold story written in great detail

I vaguely knew of this war but now having read this, I feel like i understand a key piece of 20th century history. The interwar period is fully outlined in this book via this one conflict.