Thomas Merton and Jacques Ellul on Technology and the Human Condition. Contemporary technology has the potential to hinder humanitys attainment of freedom in the opinion of Thomas Merton and Jacques Ellul. Both thinkers offer unique perspectives on the impact that they believe technology has had on society in the twentieth century, and they both offer unconventional definitions of the concept of freedom.Shaw compares their views on technology and its impact on freedom, and in doing so allows those who may not be familiar with either of these thinkers to investigate some of their other writing more thoroughly.

In 1529, an army from the Sultanate of Adal in modern-day Somalia invaded neighbouring Ethiopia. For the next fourteen years, the conflict ravaged Ethiopia, planting the seeds of enmity and mistrust in the Horn of Africa that resonates to this day. The Ethiopian-Adal War: Conquest of Abyssinia brings sixteenth-century Arab, Portuguese, and Ethiopian primary source material from this conflict to contemporary readers for the first time in the English language in a single volume. Situating the conflict into the wider struggle for maritime supremacy between the Portuguese and Ottoman Empires, readers will have the chance to learn about a little-known conflict which nearly resulted in the subjugation of Christian Ethiopia at the hands of Imam Gurey, the Sultan of Adal. Included are maps of the conflict's major battles, never before seen in any publication. Colour images of the combatants and photographs of the Ethiopian landscape complete the account of this epic conflict.