This work investigates the causal relationship between the expansion of the Ethiopian educational system and the subsequent political destabilization that led to the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie. Paulos Milkias, a scholar of Ethiopian history and politics, utilizes a socio-political framework to analyze how the modernization of schools created a new class of educated youth whose expectations for governance and economic opportunity clashed with the traditional feudal structure of the imperial regime. The text argues that the state's failure to integrate this burgeoning intellectual class served as the primary catalyst for the 1974 revolution.

Scholars of Horn of Africa studies recognize this text as a significant contribution to understanding the internal pressures that dismantled the imperial government. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the author's reliance on primary source documentation regarding student activism.