Thought Provokers

Power in the Age of AI

With all the talk of AI of recent, I picked up “Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” (2023) by Paul Scharre to see where the new changes might fit into courses I have covered of recent (political economy, ethics, evaluation). A complaint to start: many figures in my copy of this book […]

Tags: #AI #China #Machine Learning #Military #Power

Thought Provokers Jun 3

Ali Shariati and the Future of Social Theory

Ali Shariati was an Iranian scholar and philosopher (1933-1977), argued to be one of the foremost intellectuals influencing the Iranian Revolution. Ali Shariati and the Future of Social Theory: Religion, Revolution, and the Role of the Intellectual (2017), edited by Byrd and Miri, revisits the ideas of Ali Shariati for contemporary and future of social sciences. […]

Tags: #Ali Shariati #Colonization #Exploitation #Faith #Social Theory

Thought Provokers Jun 3

The Afghanistan File

Walking around a bookshop that largely carried children’s materials, I came across an interesting (and out of place) book: “The Afghanistan File” written by Prince Turki AlFaisal Al Saud, the Director of the General Intelligence Directorate (1977-2001) in Saudi Arabia. It seems the book was dictated by Prince Turki, written by Michael Field, and published […]

Tags: #Afghanistan #Saudi Arabia #Taliban #Turki Al Faisal Al Saud

Thought Provokers May 30

Bad Samaritans

Ha-Joon Chang has written many excellent books, on this blog I have covered Kicking Away the Ladder and 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism. With the encouragement of Oxfam’s Duncan Green, in 2007 Chang published “Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism”. The book aims for a […]

Tags: #Bad Samaritans #Capitalism #Free Trade Myth #Ha-Joon Chang #Neoliberalism

Thought Provokers May 26

We Have Never Been Modern

That was 1993, via Latour: “On page four of my daily newspaper, I learn that the measurements taken above the Antarctic are not good this year: the hole in the ozone layer is growing ominously larger. Reading on, I turn from upper-atmosphere chemists to Chief Executive Officers of Atochem and Monsanto, companies that are modifying […]

Tags: #Latour #Modern #Modernism #Modernity

Thought Provokers May 22

Arab Development Denied

I have covered many critical assessments of development on this blog. However, comparatively few have covered the Middle East and North Africa region. Was pleased to come across “Arab Development Denied: Dynamics of Accumulation by Wars of Encroachment” by Ali Kadri (2015). The region has had diverse historical and contemporary experiences and I found several […]

Tags: #Ali Kadri #Arab Development Denied #Arab World #Middle East #North Africa

Thought Provokers May 17

Samora Machel

Ohio University Press has a series of “Short Histories of Africa”. I recently decided to pick up most of the collection for potential use as reading materials for classes. This post covers “Mozambique’s Samora Machel: A Life Cut Short” (2020), by Allen Isaacman and Barbara Isaacman. Like the books on Nkrumah and Cabral, this one […]

Tags: #Colonialism #Isaacman #Mozambique #Samora Machel #solidarity

Thought Provokers May 12

Amilcar Cabral

Ohio University Press has a series of “Short Histories of Africa”. I recently decided to pick up most of the collection for potential use as reading materials for classes. This post covers “Amilcar Cabral: Nationalist and Pan-Africanist Revolutionary” (2019), by Peter Karibe Mendy. This book in relatively longer in this series, like the Nkrumah book, […]

Tags: #Amilcar Cabral #Colonial Logic #Racism #solidarity #White Supremacy

Thought Provokers May 8

Kwame Nkrumah

Ohio University Press has a series of “Short Histories of Africa”. I recently decided to pick up most of the collection for potential use as reading materials for classes. This post covers “Kwame Nkrumah: Visions of Liberation” (2021), by Jeffrey S. Ahlman. The book is contextualized beyond biographical detail, with details of the events occurring […]

Tags: #Colonialism #Ghana #Kwame Nkrumah #Liberation #Self-determination

Thought Provokers Apr 28

Julius Nyerere

Ohio University Press has a series of “Short Histories of Africa”. I recently decided to pick up most of the collection for potential use as reading materials for classes. This post covers “Julius Nyerere” (2017), by Paul Bjerk. A few notes: “Upon returning he was told he no longer had a job at St. Francis […]

Tags: #History #Julius Nyerere #Paul Bjerk #Tanzania #Ujamaa

Thought Provokers Apr 23

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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.

Logan Cochrane