In this paper a new excitation control scheme that improves the transient stability of multi machine power systems is proposed. To this end the backstepping technique is used to transform the system to a suitable partially linear form. On this system, a combination of both feedback linearization and adaptive control techniques are used to confront the nonlinearities. As shown in the paper, the resulting nonlinear control law ensures the uniform boundedness of all the state and estimated variables. Furthermore, it is proven that all the error variables are uniformly ultimately bounded (DUB) i.e. they converge to arbitrarily selected small regions around zero in finite-time. Simulation tests on a two generator infinite bus power system demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control.