Thought Provokers
Classifications of Nations
In 1068 Said al Andalusi wrote Kitaab Tabaqaat al ‘Umam, which was translated as “Book of the Categories of Nations”, which the translators of the 1991 version should be better translated as “Classifications of Nations” but kept with the norms of titling for this work. The book is a sort of reference for scholars, publications, […]
Tags: #Categories of Nations #Classifications of Nations #History #Knowledge #Science
Qatar: Politics and the Challenges of Development
In the same year that Kamrava published his book on Qatar, Matthew Gray published Qatar: Politics and the Challenges of Development (2013). Kamrava’s book has about three times as many citations and seems to have become the go-to book on political issues in Qatar for the time period. Kamrava took a position at Georgetown University in […]
Tags: #Development #Matthew Gray #Politics #Politics and the Challenges of Development #Qatar
FIFA 2022: Qatar, The Legacy
FIFA 2022: Qatar, The Legacy edited by Qoronfleh and Essa (2021) contains 24 chapters on a wide range of topics related to FIFA 2022 in Qatar. While chapters of this book look at FIFA in Qatar, there is much beyond the title. There are unique chapters on the role of sport on society in Qatar, gender and sport, sports infrastructure, crowd management, […]
Jassim the Leader
In their books on the history of Qatar, Fromherz and Harkness do not include Arabic, Turkish, or Farsi sources, interestingly they also do not include English books that have been translated, such as Al-Ejli’s book, or original English books, as in Jassim the Leader, Founder of Qatar (2012) by Mohamed A. J. alThani (the author […]
Founder of Qatar
In searching for alternative voices telling the history of Qatar, I found a copy of “Sheikh Jassim al-Thani: Founder of Qatar – A Historical Study of a Nineteenth Century Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula” (2015). The book was written in Arabic by Dr Omar al-Ejli, then translated into English by Abdul Salam Idrisi. The book […]
Tags: #Books #Colonial gaze #History #Jassim al Thani #Qatar
Humanitarian Work in Ethiopia’s Somali Region
Lauren Carruth provides a useful introduction to Ethiopia’s Somali region, to the practices of global health, to ‘humanitarianism’, and to anthropology / ethnography with her 2021 publication: Love and Liberation: Humanitarian Work in Ethiopia’s Somali Region (Cornell University Press). The book helpfully deconstructs international / Euro-Western conceptualizations of humanitarianism and re-orients that within the Somali context (linguistic, socio-cultural, […]
Tags: #Anthropology #Ethiopia #Humanitarian #Humanitarianism #Somali
Contemporary Qatar
Edited books are challenging to summarize, this post surveys some of the chapters and key points that stood out to me in this new collection, Contemporary Qatar (2021), edited by Zweiri and Al Qawasmi. Ch 1 outlines the challenges experienced by the new state, often driven by external actors but which slowed the process of state building, which […]
Tags: #Books #Contemporary Qatar #Qatar
How to Rig an Election
“The greatest political paradox of our time is this: there are more elections than ever before, and yet the world is becoming less democratic” (p. 1). This paradox is explained in How to Rig an Election (2018) by Cheeseman and Klaas (published by Yale). In sum: “How is it possible that the flourishing of elections […]
Tags: #Democracy #elections #fraud #hacking the election #How to rig an election
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates
Gates’ How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need (2021) is well written. The book seems to aim for an audience that has had minimal engagement with climate change conversations. The first chapter sets the scene for the author’s positionality, followed by a few chapters on climate science 101. […]
Tags: #Bill Gates #Climate #Climate Change #Climate Disaster #How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
Another Now
What would the world look like is the 2008 financial crisis inspired a radical transformation of society as we know it (rather than bailing out the banks to continue the status quo)? Yanis Varoufakis has ventured some answers in his Another Now (2020). The book is fictional, which the author uses to present a range […]
Tags: #Another Now #Financial Crisis #Futurism #Futurist #Yanis Varoufakis
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.
Featured Posts
Tags
Africa Agriculture Anthropology Books Capitalism Civil society Climate change Colonialism Colonization Conflict Culture decolonization Democracy Development Development Studies Economics Education Ethics Ethiopia Ethnography Fellowship Food Security Gender Globalization Governance History Human Rights Inequality Interdisciplinary International development Islam Justice Land Leadership Middle East Migration Participation Philosophy Policy Politics Post-doc Poverty Power Qatar Racism Resilience Revolution Rural Development South Africa SustainabilitySubscribe to receive new blog posts via email