Father Pedro Páez's History of Ethiopia is an invaluable, first-hand account of everyday life in a Jesuit mission to Ethiopia during the opening decades of the 1600s. Moreover, it sheds light on innumerable issues from the annals of the Ethiopian Church and biblical exegesis to ethnography and the accumulation of power. Producing a history of early seventeenth-century Ethiopia would be impossible without Páez's History. The text, which was originally written in Portuguese, has until now never been rendered into any language, thereby confining its readership to a Portuguese-speaking audience. As a result the work's ethnographical and historiographical value has often been overlooked. This volume, the first translation into English of a work that is essential to understanding the history of Ethiopia, should certainly be celebrated.

While Páez was indeed a missionary whose chief goal was to convert the populace to Catholicism, he also described many local rites (such as the Ethiopian celebration of the Eucharist) as well as local flora and fauna in a detailed and penetrating manner. The priest's mastery of the native tongue enabled him to translate dozens of Ethiopian religious works into Portuguese. Páez can be considered part of a fellowship of early seventeenth-century Jesuit missionaries (including Mateo Ricci and Roberto de Nobili) who exhibited heightened sensitivity towards the local culture of the peoples that they were eager to convert. História da Etiópia thus attests to the fact that many Jesuit texts were critical to the retention and recovery of Ethiopian written and oral traditions.

Christopher J. Tribe's translation is based on the original Portuguese version, which was republished in 2008. Edited by Isabel Boavida, Hervé Pennec, and Manuel João Ramos, this republication brought an inaccessible work to a broader public. The 2008 edition was preceded by two others: the Italian Jesuit Camillo Beccari's edited version of autograph manuscript 42 of the Archivum Romanum S. I.Footnote ¹ and Elaine Sanceau and Alberto Feio's volumes, which are based on manuscript 778 of the Braga Public Library.Footnote ² However, the most recent Portuguese edition, whose character and annotations Tribe has faithfully preserved, refreshes Páez's testimony and reestablishes its privileged position. The merit of Boavida, Pennec, and Ramos’ enterprise is not only in the diffusion of this monumental work, but also in its thorough critical apparatus. Taking into consideration the two extant manuscripts of the História da Etiópia, their edition offers a comparative analysis and critical perspective that eluded their predecessors. They also survey the written sources that Páez himself drew on. In addition, it features a historical glossary, an index, and an updated bibliography. Notwithstanding the absence of some recent publications, the bibliography prepares students well to approach research on Páez.

In their critical introduction, Boavida, Pennec, and Ramos convey the text's controversial nature and place it within its argumentative context. They set out the rivalry between the Dominican and Jesuit orders, casting into doubt the ‘true’ or ‘sincere’ vision that emerges from Beccari and Sanceau's versions. They then analyze the work's reception among the Jesuit missionaries who replaced Páez in Ethiopia. To a lesser extent, the editors discuss the theological and Christological controversies between the Jesuits and the Ethiopian monks and scholars. In so doing, they recapture the polemical environment in which História da Etiópia took form. The introduction also explores the priest's role in the discovery of the Blue Nile.

In the context of the appreciable strides in Ethiopian studies over the past sixty years, there have been significant contributions in recent decades to our knowledge of the Jesuit mission (1555–1632).Footnote ³ Moreover, scholars have published new and unanticipated readings of the ancient texts, adding further complexity to our image of seventeenth-century Ethiopia. Tribe's translation of the História da Etiópia constitutes a wonderful opportunity to explore Páez's output from new perspectives. This elegant and meticulous edition has invigorated the study of Ethiopian history, especially with respect to the land's political, cultural, and religious developments in the 1600s. By dint of the editors’ and translator's efforts, future scholars of Ethiopia and of missionary movements the world over will benefit from the richness emanating from Father Pedro Páez's quill.