[1] Haggai Erlich was born to a working-class family in Tel Aviv, was a member of the leftist youth movement Hashomer Hatsair and studied in the Oriental Class of Tel Aviv municipality secondary school D. He served in the Nahal paratroops battalion and as a reservist fought in the battle on Jerusalem in 1967 Six-Day War.

In 1973 he received his Ph.D. from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, where he wrote his thesis on the History of Ras Alula, Ethiopia's national hero, under the guidance of professors Richard Gray and Edward Ullendorff.

In the same context it analyzes Ethiopia's home affairs of the time, mainly Tigrean-Shoan relations, the establishment of Asmara and late 19th century Eritrean history.

A collection of twelve articles which had been published in various journals, all revolving around the Ethiopian modern experience, and which in sequence constitute an attempt at understanding the country's unique success at maintaining independence.

The second is the analysis and evolution of the basic mutual concepts and images which were shaped in earlier formative stages and have been reshaped in later confrontations to be transmitted to the conceptual reservoir of today's Ethiopian, Egyptian and Arab nationalism.

The series analyses the "Parliamentarian" 1920s and "The Crisis of the 1930s" focusing mainly on the dynamism of inter-generational tensions as a key to sociopolitical and ideological changes.

In so doing the series surveys developments in each of the major countries, but also attempts to narrate the history of the region as the home of a common Islamic-Arab civilization.

The introduction, written with co-editor (and co-organizer) Professor Israel Gershoni, presents the main theme of the book: the role of the River Nile in communicating, but also separating between its various riparian cultures and societies.

“Islam” (H. Erlich) discusses its role among ethnic minorities and on the margins of society, and ends with its apparent revolution and penetration into the core as of the 1990s.

The Older Sister’s introduction surveys Egypt's leading role in shaping modern developments in the Middle East and in influencing the all-regional periodization of the post World War II era.

The pivotal theme is the ever-dynamic interplay between the various social and political forces in Egypt and the country's various identities – Islamic, Arab, Egyptian.

The narrative follows the development of strategic relations ever since Mussolini's conquest of Ethiopia through the Ogaden War and local activities of the terrorism networks of the 1990s.

Tracing the modern history of the region where the two religions first met, and where they are engaged now in active confrontation, this book surveys the political developments in the Horn of Africa since the late nineteenth century.

The analysis combines the factual changes with an exploration of the ways in which religious formulations of the nearby "other" influenced policymaking and were also reshaped by it.

A detailed analysis of the development of higher education in the region combined with discussion of the rule of students in changing the Middle East along eight major historical junctures, from the rise of modern nationalist movements to the Arab Spring.

Analyzing the legacies of old religious messages and their influence on modern strategic relations the book, based on new archival material, sheds new lights on an African-Middle Eastern drama which began with great promise and ended disastrously in 1973.