https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/4/420 Abstract: For the past decade, the land rush discourse has analyzed foreign investment in land and agriculture around the world, with Africa being a continent of particular focus due to the scale of acquisitions that have taken place. Gabon, a largely forested state in Central Africa, has been neglected in the land rush conversations, […]
Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969), a pseudonym meaning ‘he who enlightens’, was the leader of the independence struggle in Vietnam and served as the President of North Vietnam (1945-1969). He was a leader of the anti-colonial struggle in Asia, advocating for revolutionary action long before the establishment of the Community Party in 1930. A short book, […]
After some politically-oriented books on Qatar, I was pleased to find Neha Vora’s “Teach for Arabia: American Universities, Liberalism, and Transnational Qatar” (2019). The book takes a quasi ethnographic approach to Education City (individual interviews and personal experience) and the author is reflexive about a wide range of topics and experiences. “Field” research was conducted […]
Eqbal Ahmad (1933-1999) is a fascinating activist academic; not the least because he came into his own in the 1960s in North Africa, largely in Algeria, where he worked with Frantz Fanon in the struggle for liberation. He was also quite close with Edward Said. He was born in India, studied in Pakistan, then the […]
Ambassador of Panama to the State of Qatar, Oreste Del Rio Sandoval, prepared a paper for a presentation made at Camilo Jose Cela University, Spain, on his experience in Qatar. The work turned into a book, titled ‘Warriors in a Time of Sacrifice’ (2019), published by Lusail. The title draws from a line in the national […]
Professor of Government at Georgetown University in Qatar, Mehran Kamrava, penned one of the most read / taught books on Qatar in 2013 (with a 2015 adding an updated Preface): Qatar: Small State, Big Politics. Having read a few books on Qatar, this is one of the best, although increasingly dated (the content essentially up […]
Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) is a foundational text in critical studies, as of this writing was cited nearly 70,000 times. In 1993 Said wrote Culture and Imperialism, which broadens the view, broadens the literature, and engages more literature from the liberation activists and writers, but is cited less (at of this writing nearly 30,000; which […]
Career diplomat and current State Minister Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al-Kawari wrote “The Global Majlis” (arabic 2015, translation 2016) as an “intellectual autobiography”. The book draws on reflections from his work in Syria, Lebanon, France and the US, as well as in Qatar (published by HBKU press). Culture emerges as a key thread throughout the book, as […]
Secure the Base (2016) is a collection of speeches that Ngugi wa Thiong’o gave. His other works include Decolonizing the Mind (1986), An African Renaissance (2009) and Theory and Politics of Knowing (2012), amongst many others. A few quotes: “It is fair to say that ‘tribe’, ‘tribalism’ and ‘tribal wars’, the terms so often used […]
Starting in 2001 Teodros Kiros began writing articles in Ethiopian newspapers, as a way to engage with the public about democracy and democratization. The articles continued until 2004, and are gathered in his book “Philosophical Essays” (2011). The series of articles are short interventions, and are largely an introduction to Euro-Western thinkers, or a sort […]