Tom Lavers is a Reader in Politics and Development at the University of Manchester's Global Development Institute (GDI). He has been researching the politics and political economy of land, industrial policy, infrastructure, and social protection in Ethiopia since 2005. His publications include the 2023 monograph Ethiopia's 'Developmental State': Political Order and Distributive Crisis published by Cambridge University Press, as well as articles in Development and Change, Journal of Agrarian Change, and World Development amongst others.

This book offers a fascinating analysis of the internal contradictions and the external entanglements of Ethiopia's dam program in the last two decades. Combining analytical depth and simple language, the book addresses the academic community, as well as policy and media circles interested in understanding Ethiopia's politically ambitious, but technically and economically problematic hydropower projects.

• Acknowledgements List of Figures List of Tables List of Abbreviations Notes on Authors 1: Dams, Power, and State-Led Development: Situating Ethiopia's Dams' Boom 2: Modernization, State Building, and the Hydraulic Mission in Imperial and Revolutionary Ethiopia 3: Political Vulnerability and the Origins of the EPRDF's Dams' Boom 4: Powering the 'Developmental State' 5: Salini: an Ethio-Italian Story 6: Upending the Hydropolitics of the Nile: From Cooperation to Unilateralism 7: Designing the Blue Nile Dam: Between the Hydropolitics of the Nile and an Ethiopian Renaissance 8: Electrifying Ethiopia, Consolidating Power: The Challenge of Distributing Electricity 9: Beyond the 'Developmental State': Prosperity and Conflict after the EPRDF 10: Ethiopia's Renaissance, Dams and State-Led Development in the Twenty-First Century Glossary References

Tom Lavers is a Reader in Politics and Development at the University of Manchester's Global Development Institute (GDI). He has been researching the politics and political economy of land, industrial policy, infrastructure, and social protection in Ethiopia since 2005. His publications include the 2023 monograph Ethiopia's 'Developmental State': Political Order and Distributive Crisis published by Cambridge University Press, as well as articles in Development and Change, Journal of Agrarian Change, and World Development amongst others.

This book offers a fascinating analysis of the internal contradictions and the external entanglements of Ethiopia's dam program in the last two decades. Combining analytical depth and simple language, the book addresses the academic community, as well as policy and media circles interested in understanding Ethiopia's politically ambitious, but technically and economically problematic hydropower projects.

• Acknowledgements List of Figures List of Tables List of Abbreviations Notes on Authors 1: Dams, Power, and State-Led Development: Situating Ethiopia's Dams' Boom 2: Modernization, State Building, and the Hydraulic Mission in Imperial and Revolutionary Ethiopia 3: Political Vulnerability and the Origins of the EPRDF's Dams' Boom 4: Powering the 'Developmental State' 5: Salini: an Ethio-Italian Story 6: Upending the Hydropolitics of the Nile: From Cooperation to Unilateralism 7: Designing the Blue Nile Dam: Between the Hydropolitics of the Nile and an Ethiopian Renaissance 8: Electrifying Ethiopia, Consolidating Power: The Challenge of Distributing Electricity 9: Beyond the 'Developmental State': Prosperity and Conflict after the EPRDF 10: Ethiopia's Renaissance, Dams and State-Led Development in the Twenty-First Century Glossary References

Tom Lavers is a Reader in Politics and Development at the University of Manchester's Global Development Institute (GDI). He has been researching the politics and political economy of land, industrial policy, infrastructure, and social protection in Ethiopia since 2005. His publications include the 2023 monograph Ethiopia's 'Developmental State': Political Order and Distributive Crisis published by Cambridge University Press, as well as articles in Development and Change, Journal of Agrarian Change, and World Development amongst others.

This book offers a fascinating analysis of the internal contradictions and the external entanglements of Ethiopia's dam program in the last two decades. Combining analytical depth and simple language, the book addresses the academic community, as well as policy and media circles interested in understanding Ethiopia's politically ambitious, but technically and economically problematic hydropower projects.

• Acknowledgements List of Figures List of Tables List of Abbreviations Notes on Authors 1: Dams, Power, and State-Led Development: Situating Ethiopia's Dams' Boom 2: Modernization, State Building, and the Hydraulic Mission in Imperial and Revolutionary Ethiopia 3: Political Vulnerability and the Origins of the EPRDF's Dams' Boom 4: Powering the 'Developmental State' 5: Salini: an Ethio-Italian Story 6: Upending the Hydropolitics of the Nile: From Cooperation to Unilateralism 7: Designing the Blue Nile Dam: Between the Hydropolitics of the Nile and an Ethiopian Renaissance 8: Electrifying Ethiopia, Consolidating Power: The Challenge of Distributing Electricity 9: Beyond the 'Developmental State': Prosperity and Conflict after the EPRDF 10: Ethiopia's Renaissance, Dams and State-Led Development in the Twenty-First Century Glossary References