Compared to other regions, there are few books about the GCC, and specifically Qatar. I try to track new publications and I came across “Kinship, State Formation and Governance in the Arab Gulf States” by Scott J. Weiner (2022), which was published by Edinburgh University Press. The book is covers Kuwait, Oman and Qatar (the latter less so compared […]
Neil Howe’s “The Fourth Turning is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us About How and When This Crisis Will End” offers a generational approach to understanding history, and predicting the future. He argues that generations move through cycles, more-or-less in 100 year periods, often marked by key events or experiences that leave imprints […]
In 2023, Tusiani and Johnson wrote “From Black Gold to Frozen Gas: How Qatar Became an Energy Superpower”, published by Columbia University Press, in the Center on Global Energy Policy Series. The book provides a unique and detailed look into the deal, actors, contracts of the development of the energy sector in Qatar, often interwoven […]
Some books are available in book shops globally and others only in local or regional markets. The Doha International Book Fair is a great place where regional publishers come together, and where the local and regional books are available. One example was “Nationalisation and Labour Market Policies in Saudi Arabia” (2023) by Abdullah Al Fozan, […]
Erin Accampo Hern’s “Explaining Success in Africa: Things Don’t Always Fall Apart” (2023) is a great teaching book (upper undergraduates or generalist graduate students). The book is easy to read, presents a clear methodology, and integrates theory / variables / data in a most-similar most-different approach. In a class, this could be the foundation, with […]
In 2010 Pascale, Sternin and Sternin published “The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World’s Toughest Problems”, published by Harvard Business Review. I am not sure how this book landed on my desk, but takes an outlier sampling approach to be utilized in a self-driven learning context for social change (and in […]
I cannot recall where or how I was directed to “Travesty in Haiti: A True Account of Christian Missions, Orphanages, Food Aid, Fraud and Drug Trafficking” (2008) by Timothy Schwartz. The book appears to be self-published, and Paul Farmer is quoted on the back as saying “This book knocks it out of the park” (assuming […]
Focusing on two country studies of the USA and Brazil, Madeleine Fairbairn’s “Fields of Gold: Financing the Global Land Rush” (2020) explores the financial side of the global rush for land. This book provides unique perspectives on a widely written about topic (often under the land grab or large-scale land acquisition frame, I’ve also used […]
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 […]
In 2005 Uma Kothari published an edited book, “A Radical History of Development Studies: Individuals, Institutions and Ideologies”. The ten chapters of the book are clustered in two broad areas (individuals and ideas as well as ideas and ideologies). That two decades have past is quite evident in this text, what was pushing the edge […]