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Cobalt Red
Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives (2022) is a journalistic take on the mining of cobalt in DR Congo, written by Siddharth Kara (the author has published other books on modern slavery). This book focuses on cobalt, the mineral that is critical for nearly all of our rechargeable devices and […]
Gambling on Development
Dercon’s 2022 development studies book “Gambling on Development: Why Some Countries Win and Others Lose” will likely become one of the key readings for the field (and is endorsed by influential thinkers: Rory Stewart, Blattman, Yuen Yuen Ang). In a nutshell the argument is that development occurs when elites make a “development bargain”, taking various […]
Thomas Pogge and his critics
The edited collection, Thomas Pogge and His Critics (2010), edited by Alison Jaggar, is an excellent collection of chapters by an exceptional line up of philosophers focused on justice. The critics present a series of challenges, critiques and clarifications for Pogge’s work, such as on positive duties, the inclusion of rights protection, the causes of […]
Islam, Ethnicity, and Conflict in Ethiopia
With Islam, Ethnicity, and Conflict in Ethiopia, Terje Østebø contributes a historical ethnography to two under researched domains. First, to African and Ethiopian studies and secondly to Islamic studies. As a field of study, African studies, and Ethiopian studies in particular, have tended to focus on dominant themes, such as the largest populations, key livelihoods, […]
Human Rights: A Political & Cultural Critique
I am late to discover Makua Mutua’s well cited (over 1,100 as of this post) book “Human Rights: A Political & Cultural Critique” (2002). Published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, this is work that inspired many of the critiques that followed. Highly recommended. A few notes: “I wanted to explain why I believe that […]
Unthinking Social Science
Arguments aplenty about specific forms of biases; in “Unthinking Social Science: The Limits of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms” (1991) Immanuel Wallerstein suggests the problem runs much deeper. The paradigms / worldviews, and assumptions that uphold them, prevent us from truly understanding the world. Drawing upon Marxist thought and critique. Wallerstein offers the beginnings of arguments that would […]
21 Lessons for the 21st Century
Best-seller Yuval Noah Harari seemed to be riding the wave of his book selling popularity with his “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” (2018), as this book largely pulls together previously published material for the book market. Granted I am picking this book up in 2023 and much has changed in the years since publication, […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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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