Books
Tocqueville in Arabia
I opened Joshua Mitchell’s “Tocqueville in Arabia: The Anxieties of the Democratic Age” (original 2013 by UChicago Press, reprint in 2023 with Encounter Books) skeptical. The author spent 3 years in Qatar in the mid-2000s and runs the risk of pretending to a be country expert (as many fly-in fly-out scholars have done). Fortunately, I […]
Brave New Words
The founder of Khan Academy, Salman Khan, wrote “Brave New Words: How AI will Revolutionize Education (and Why That’s a Good Thing)” in 2024. The book is part history of Khan Academy, part introduction to AI and LLMs, large part of Khan Academy promotional work (other reviewers also felt this book felt like an infomercial), and […]
Tags: #AI #Books #Brave New Words #Khan Academy #Salman Khan
Masters of the Pearl
From the many historical books of Qatar, one of the newest is “Masters of the Pearl: A History of Qatar” (2020) by Michael Quentin Morton. The author has written a history of the UAE, oil in the Middle East, Buraimi, his father’s life as an oil geologist, and this book on Qatar (where he spent […]
Critical Development Studies: An Introduction
I try to keep an eye out for useful teaching materials, particularly ones that provide unique perspectives on issues that students may not have encountered in their studies (unfortunately many courses are similar ideas/voice on repeat, in various forms). “Critical Development Studies: In Introduction” (2018) by Veltmeyer and Wise is brief (170 pages), easy to […]
Tags: #Books #Critical Development Studies #Development Studies #International Development #Introduction
Qatar’s Modern and Contemporary Development
One of the benefits of being in Qatar, when reading books written on the country, is the ability to walk the shelves of the Qatar National Library and stumble upon gems that almost certainly would not be available outside of Qatar. One example of this is “Qatar’s Modern and Contemporary Development: Chapters of Political, Social […]
Tags: #Books #Development #Doha #History #Qatar
Founder of Qatar
In searching for alternative voices telling the history of Qatar, I found a copy of “Sheikh Jassim al-Thani: Founder of Qatar – A Historical Study of a Nineteenth Century Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula” (2015). The book was written in Arabic by Dr Omar al-Ejli, then translated into English by Abdul Salam Idrisi. The book […]
Tags: #Books #Colonial gaze #History #Jassim al Thani #Qatar
Contemporary Qatar
Edited books are challenging to summarize, this post surveys some of the chapters and key points that stood out to me in this new collection, Contemporary Qatar (2021), edited by Zweiri and Al Qawasmi. Ch 1 outlines the challenges experienced by the new state, often driven by external actors but which slowed the process of state building, which […]
Tags: #Books #Contemporary Qatar #Qatar
Reading Qatar
Qatar National Library The Creation of Qatar (1979) Zahlan Histoire et Changements Sociaux au Qatar (1982) Montigny-Kozlowska Oil and Politics in the Gulf (1990) Crystal The Ottoman Gulf (1997) Anscombe The Emergence of Qatar (2005) Rahman Qatar, A Modern History (2012, 2017) Fromherz Jassim the Leader (2012) Mohamed al-Thani Qatar – Politics and the Challenges […]
Reading that should be more common…
Ibn Khaldun (2015 translation, 1377 original) Al Muqaddimah Cesaire, A. (1950) Discourse on Colonialism Fanon, F. (1952) Black Skin, White Masks Fanon, F. (1959) A Dying Colonialism Baldwin, J. (1962) The Fire Next Time Fanon, F. (1963) The Wretched of the Earth Fanon, F. (1964) Toward the African Revolution Memmi, A. (1965) The Colonizer and the […]
Tags: #Alternative Curricula #Books #decolonization #decolonize #Radical Ideas
Who Are You and Why Are You Here?
I have previously noted my interested in the expanded journal version of people recounting their experiences (e.g. this recent book on the Ebola response). The style (and title) of Jacques Claessens “Who are you and why are you here?” (2018), which was originally published in French in 2013 and translated in this version by Nigel […]
Tags: #Books #Burkina Faso #Development Studies #International development #Jacques Claessens
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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