Hiob Ludolf and Johann Michael Wansleben. Oriental Studies, Politics, and History between Gotha and Africa, 1650-1700

The work under review promises to contribute to our understanding of two individuals who were of great importance for early modern European interest in Ethiopia: Hiob Ludolf (1624-1704) and Johann Michael Wansleben (1635-1679). The former is known as an “armchair scholar” who meticulously collected knowledge about a wide range of matters relating to Ethiopia, while the latter is known as a travelling “manuscript hunter”[1] who never actually visited the country. However, only three of the total twenty-two chapters focus on Wansleben. From the perspective of Ethiopian studies, this is regrettable, as the significance of Wansleben for Ethiopic studies has been highlighted, for example, by Alessandro Bausi.[2] Nevertheless, this does not diminish the overall high quality of the individual contributions or the volume as a whole – after all, editors of academic conference proceedings are dependent on the range of topics submitted by the scholarly community.