Books like A History of Ethiopia

I waver between two and one stars for this book. I chose this book as one of the more highly rated thorough histories of Ethiopia but the writing style and content were often disappointing. While I do feel I learned a lot about the modern history of Ethiopia, since the 1800's, I learned next to nothing about culture, except obtusely through politics, about lifestyles, and not all that much about pre-1600 Ethiopia. Marcus chose to skim over "early" history of Ethiopia by rattling off names of emperors and who they conquered or what territories they lost. Stories took on a bit more liveliness in the more modern era but I did not get a strong sense of people. Only their political actions. Major shifts like religious changes, connections to the Western world, socialism that toppled the monarchy, etc. seemed to pop into being and their origin, their meaning within Ethiopia borders and to Ethiopian peoples, went largely unexplained.