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Table of Contents
About The Book
In the darkest days of World War II, as Hitler’s forces converged on Moscow and the Imperial Japanese navy prepared its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, a 24-year-old British sergeant took part in a rare and almost forgotten Allied victory.
Ten Days That Shook My World: Searching for My Father in War-Torn Ethiopia, author Jonathan Wickham recounts how the discovery of an old photograph propels him on a journey to uncover the mystery of his father’s wartime experience.
Years of painstaking research reveals that on November 27, 1941, Sgt. Wickham fought as a gunner with British forces who joined Ethiopian resistance fighters. Together, they drove Mussolini from Gondar, his last stronghold and Ethiopia’s old imperial capital, making it the first country liberated from the Axis Powers.
The story culminates in the author’s own 10-day journey to Ethiopia in March 2023. The mountainous heartland that he begins scouring for evidence of World War II is only just emerging from a vicious new struggle. Ethiopia has fought a bloody civil war out of which has come a still fragile peace. For protection, he must hire guards armed with AK-47s as he drives and hikes the battle sites around Gondar—the first to do so in 80 years. But he’s rewarded with sharp glimpses of his father’s artillery unit fighting to free Gondar. On a bitterly contested ridge, Alemu, one of his guards and a soldier himself, movingly tells him, “Your father fought alongside our fathers that day.”
The story also moves far beyond World War II. It explores Ethiopia today as well as the country’s earlier, equally riveting history—from monasteries on Lake Tana to imperial castles. Ultimately, this also becomes a story of self-discovery, a 10-day journey that ‘shook’ and profoundly changed the author’s own sense of identity and belonging.
Product Details
- Publisher: Histria Perspectives (February 24, 2026)
- Length: 300 pages
- ISBN13: 9781592117048
Raves and Reviews
In his evocative "Ten Days That Shook My World," English-documentarian Jonathan Wickham, trading camera for notebook, leaves his American home for a pilgrimage to Africa, where he was born and spent his childhood. In Ethiopia, for ten memorable days, the white journalist reconnoiters the World-War-II paths of his late father, a soldier in the Royal Artillery. Heartfelt and passionate, "Ten Days" is a poignant, first-person story of a man recovering native soil as well as a son's discovery of harrowing tales of war his taciturn father never shared.
– —Tom Chaffin, author of Odyssey: Young Charles Darwin, The Beagle, and the Voyage that Changed the World
“Ten Days That Shook My World” weaves together superbly Wickham’s travels in this most unique of African countries in which, to quote the writer, the present and the past ‘are constantly communicating with each other’. His story will strike a particular chord with anyone with Africa deep in their veins,
– General Richard Shirreff, Author of War with Russia: An Urgent Warning from Senior Military Command
In Ten Days That Shook My World, author Jonathan Wickham sets out to discover how his father's artillery battalion alongside other British imperial forces' joined local Patriot fighters in the campaign to liberate Ethiopia from Mussolini's Fascist grasp. The result was the earliest, yet often forgotten, Allied victory of the Second World War. Some 80 years later, in his first-person account, Wickham deftly interweaves the progress of the campaign into his own present-day adventure. I thoroughly enjoyed his first-person account of his experiences, conversations and observations about the history of Ethiopia from ancient to modern times. What particularly struck me is that we need more such studies of the fighting in both East and West Africa, which has been virtually ignored, overshadowed by the campaign against Rommel in North Africa. I found the book to be compelling, enlightening, and highly readable, and would recommend it without reservation to all potential readers.
– John H. Morrow, Jr., Franklin professor of history at University of Georgia & recipient of the 2019 Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing.
I have been an explorer for my entire life, as has author Jonathan Wickham, who has joined me on some shared adventures. These have not only uncovered lost chapters of human history but have also led to a better understanding of what lies within each and every one of us. His new book “10 Days That Shook My World” is a vivid example of that process! [66 words]
– Dr. Robert Ballard, scientist and undersea explorer, celebrated for his discoveries of long-lost shipwrecks, including RMS Titanic, the German World War II battleship Bismarck
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