Thought Provokers
Building a Global Policy School in Asia
Last month I had the opportunity to visit the LKY Policy School, ranked #3 in the world for Policy Schools. In preparation for the visit, I picked up “Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy – Building a Global Policy School in Asia”. The book was published in 2012, meaning it reflected on the first […]
Tags: #LKY #LKY Policy School #LKY SPP #National University of Singapore #NUS #Policy Schools #Singapore
Silencing the Past
Written by Michel-Rolph Trouillot in 1995, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History is a widely cited (more than 11,000 citations as of this post) critique of representation in history. The book brings power to the fore of history, which is often assumed to be apolitical or unbiased. The author passed away in […]
Tags: #Anthropology #History #Narrative #Power #Representation #Silences
Acts Of Resistance
The history of anti-colonial resistance is not widely available in the global bookstore. However, when one travels to places where such resistance took place local publishers often make these histories visible. One example is a short book – Acts of Resistance: Dol Said and the Naning War – that documents the leadership and acts of […]
Tags: #Anticolonial struggle #Dol Said #History #Malaysia #Naning #Resistance
Singapore: Public Subsidy / Private Accumulation
On a trip to Singapore in 2025 one question that arose as we moved around the country was what tools the government used to generate revenue, and in particular for a small, high income country without natural resources. One of the unexpected areas (beyond the location and development of a maritime trading hub, financial hub, […]
Tags: #Development #Housing #Land #Nationalization #Singapore
Empire of Humanity
Michael Barnett’s “Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism” (2011, Cornell University Press) is a great addition to not only the history of the sector but also its complexities and ethical challenges. This is recommended reading for anyone seeking to understand humanitarianism. One limitation is that the book has a eurocentric focus, neglecting traditions from […]
On The Postcolony
Mbembe is a great philosopher who has made significant contributions, which are widely cited. This is notable because his work is largely in French and his books have had to be translated into English to reach broader audiences. Despite that delay, as of this writing he has amassed 70,000 citations to his work. This book, […]
The Hidden Injuries of Class
This 1972 book, The Hidden Injuries of Class, is a highly cited book (nearly 5,000 citations) by Sennett and Cobb. The work covers meritocracy, individualism and class / caste. Suggested to be a sociological critique of everyday life, and at the time of publication it may have been unique and inspired other similar investigations. A […]
Tags: #Class #Cobb #Hidden Injuries #Labor #Marxism #Meaning #Production #Sennett
The Invention of Africa
V. Y. Mudimbe, Congolese-born American philosopher, is probably most well known for this book “The Invention of Africa – Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge” (1988). The book is a discourse analysis of sorts on the conceptualization of Africa and of African philosophy. With decades having passed since its writing, the novelty of this […]
Tags: #Africa #Invention of Africa #Knowledge #Mudimbe #Power
The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad
Recent scholarship has sought to gather and analyze what was suggested to be the agreements made in the early years of Islam with other faith communities. The veracity of these documents was a question (not a new question). In “The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad: From Shared Historical Memory to Peaceful Co-Existence” (2023), Ibrahim Zein […]
Tags: #Diversity #HBKU #History #Inclusion #Islam #Methodology #Social Cohesion
Empire of Chaos
Samir Amin has written a shelf full of books, many of which are compilations of articles he wrote. I have a shelf of them, including these compilations. Since these are compilations and not purpose written books one finds less new, and most are of Samir Amin reiterating his core messages, occasionally to new topics of […]
Tags: #Empire of Chaos #Geopolitics #Imperialism #Samir Amin
About me
Logan Cochrane
Associate Professor at HBKU in the College of Public Policy. He is an Associate Fellow of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences and an Adjunct Professor at Hawassa University (Institute for Policy and Development Research). Over the last fifteen years, he has worked in Afghanistan, Benin, Burundi, Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Logan acts as a consultant for governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations, seeking to create bridges between research and practice.
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