Logan Cochrane

The Horn of Africa

One of the Horn of Africa’s long-time scholars, Christopher Clapham, wrote “The Horn of Africa: State Formation and Decay” (2017), with Oxford University Press. A lot of the book, expectedly, focuses on Ethiopia. And, unfortunately for Clapham, the world of Ethiopia and the Horn has changed dramatically since. The book is accessible, which is often […]

Tags: #Clapham #Ethiopia #Horn of Africa #Somalia #Somaliland

Shariah Law Questions and Answers

In 2017, Mohammad Hashim Kamali, published a collection of crafted questions about Shariah, divided into 17 sections and 190 questions. I have posted on a number of Kamali’s books, largely with reference to their use in teaching ethics and integrating more diverse thought traditions into the course. The audience of the book appears geared toward […]

Stokely Speaks

Stokely Carmichael, better known as Kwame Ture, gave a number speeches and penned articles and letters, which were gathered in “Stokely Speaks: From Black Power to Pan-Africanism” (1965), with multiple prints and new Forwards added with each new print. A few quotes: “I wouldn’t be the first to point out the American capacity for self-delusion. One […]

Tags: #Colonization #Kwame Ture #Racism #Stokely Carmichael #Stokely Speaks

Beginning with Heidegger

Millerman draws our attention to Heidegger as a source of key philosophical and political contributions that have shaped thought since his contributions in Beginning with Heidegger (2020). I came across Millerman via Dugin, some of whose books he has translated into English. This book is a slightly modified version of Michael Millerman’s 2018 PhD thesis with the […]

Tags: #Heidegger #Millerman #Philosophy #Political Theory #Politics

Democracy and Development in Africa

While a visiting scholar at Brookings, Claude Ake wrote “Democracy and Development in Africa” (1995), published by Brookings. As nearly three decades have passed, I focus less on the specifics (e.g., agricultural policy recommendations) and highlight the general arguments, a few notes: “Many factors have been offered to explain the apparent failure of the development […]

Tags: #Africa #Claude Ake #Democracy #Development #Ideology of development

When McKinsey Comes to Town

As an expose of McKinsey, this book focuses on the most questionable and problematic aspects of the company’s work. Selection bias aside, the authors (Walt Bogdanich & Michel Forsythe) document a company seeking profits by any means: improving tobacco sales while knowledge the harmful effects, improving opioid sales amidst a peak of overdose deaths, human […]

Tags: #Capitalism #Consulting #McKinsey #Walt Bogdanich #When McKinsey Comes to Town

Imagining Afghanistan

Quite a number of books have followed in the tradition of Edward Said, critiquing and contesting the manufacturing of narratives. Nivi Manchanda’s “Imagining Afghanistan” The History and Politics of Imperial Knowledge” (2020) provides a deep dive into those narratives of Afghanistan. Chapters of the book explore the use of “tribe” and “tribalism”, the colonial construction […]

Tags: #Afghanistan #Colonial #Colonialism #History #Manufactured consent

God’s Unruly Friends

I discovered “God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Middle Period 1200-1550” (2006) by Ahmet Karamustafa largely by accident (it was a footnote in another book I had read). The title got me, but it sat on the shelf for a while until I got to it. The book itself is quite short, the […]

Tags: #Dervish #Deviant #History #Middle East #Social Norms

Nasser: My Husband

The American University of Cairo published “Nasser: My Husband” (2013) by Tahia Gamal Abdul Nassar. The book was translated from an earlier Arabic version. For anyone interested in the personal life of Nasser, this provides some insight. It comparatively provides little on his political and military experiences – if one is after that information, better […]

Tags: #Egypt #Gamal Abdel Nasser #Nasser

The Silk Roads

In a random bookshop in Kathmandu I came across “The Silk Roads: A New History of the World” (2015) by Peter Frankopan. Having taught Global Political Economy in the past and gone through a number of textbooks (which are largely centered on the Euro-West and its perspectives on global matters) I was hoping this book […]

Tags: #History #Politics #Power #Silk Roads #Trade