678 results found for ""
Ethiopia in the Wake of Political Reforms
Following years of protests, unrest and instability Abiy Ahmed became the Prime Minister of Ethiopia in 2018. After a year of optimism and positivity, the challenges put increasing pressure on a fragile transition. It was around this time that a group of scholars met to take stock of the situation and develop the ideas of […]
Can Non-Europeans Think? (Dabashi)
I looked forward to Hamid Dabashi’s Can Non-Europeans Think? (2015), with a forward by Walter Mignolo. Although the articles are interesting, they are a disconnected set of writings over a period of fifteen or so years. Most are former journalistic publications, which leaves academic readers wanting for references to follow-up on and dig deeper. The […]
The Gulf Crisis, Views from Qatar
With the potential for an end, or at least easing of tensions, in the GCC, it seems an interesting moment to look back and see what the perspectives were when the crisis started. “The Gulf Crisis: The View from Qatar” (2018), edited by Miller, gives a set of perspectives on a wide range of issues, […]
Capitalism, Alone
In the realm of those interested in inequality, Milanovic and Piketty have been leading intellectual voices in the last decade. A few years ago I wrote about Milanovic’s 2016 book on global inequality, this post covers his 2019 book Capitalism, Alone. In general, I think anyone interested in development economics should read this, and fortunately […]
Define and Rule – Mamdani
Mahmood Mamdani has written a number of essential reading books, including When Victims Become Killers, as well as Citizen and Subject and Neither Settler Nor Native (reviews on those to come in future posts). Define and Rule: Native as Political Identity (2012) is the W. E. B. Du Bois lectures, presented in three chapters (Nativism: […]
Murdering Patrice Lumumba
Having recently read and posted about the letters, writing and speeches of Patrice Lumumba, I was looking forward the book by Gerard and Kuklick (2015), published by Harvard, titled “Death in the Congo: Murdering Patrice Lumumba”. While it was well researched and interesting, it was a different book than what I was expecting, and I […]
Charity in Islamic Societies
Amy Singer’s book on Charity in Islamic Societies (2008) covers a wide range of topics related to charitable giving (zakat, sadaqah) and charitable institutions (awqaf), providing canonical and historical examples of them. In particular, I was interested in the parts on endowments / foundations / trusts (singular waqf, plural awqaf). Singer describes them as “specific endowed properties, the revenues of […]
Lumumba: May Our People Triumph
LeoPard books has collected the speeches, writings, letters and telegrams of the former Prime Minister of DR Congo, Patrice Lumumba in “May Our People Triumph” (2016). It also collects a set of articles written about him after his murder. The book has some editorial errors and formatting issues, but nonetheless is a useful collection to […]
The Green Book – Gaddafi
The former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi explained his political philosophy in The Green Book. The Green Book is a short work (the English translation is 92 pages) presented in short chapters on a wide range of topics, organized into three parts. The first part is a critique of Western forms of democracy and a proposal […]
Sankara, An African Revolutionary
If you have heard of Thomas Sankara but don’t know much about him and his life, Ernest Harsch’s “Thomas Sankara: An African Revolutionary” (2014) is a useful introduction. However, the book is quite brief (152 pages in a small sized book) – it is part of the Short Histories of Africa series. For a more […]
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