History
Beyond Colonialism and Nationalism in the Maghrib
This edited book started as an idea in the late 1990s and was published in 2000 by Palgrave. “Beyond Colonialism and Nationalism in the Maghrib: History, Culture, and Politics”, edited by Ali Abdullatif Ahmida is a read for a niche audience. The chapters cover historical narratives, memory, identity, literature, and politics. As many edited books, […]
Tags: #Africa #Colonialism #History #Maghrib #Nationalism #North Africa #Politics
A Human History of the Sahara
Judith Scheele is an anthropologist who has spent decades across the Sahara. This book project, Shift Sands: A Human History of the Sahara (2025) appears to have begun at least a decade before. The book is less a human history, and more an introduction to the peoples and livelihoods of the Sahara, as viewed from […]
Tags: #Africa #Anthropology #History #Reflexivity #Sahara #Tribe
Remaking the Silk Road
The subtitle of this book had me assuming the book “The King’s Road” would go in a different direction, which reads “Diplomacy and the Remaking of the Silk Road” (2023, Princeton University Press). The book is about remaking, the title is accurate; the remaking is our historical understanding of the “Silk Road” and – seemingly […]
Tags: #China #History #Kazakhstan #Kyrgyzstan #Silk Road #Tajikistan #The King's Road #Tibet #Uzbekistan #Xin Wen
Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment
Ahmet Kuru’s Cambridge University Press book, “Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison” (2019) is a unique and provocative book. Parts of the data referenced are dated (e.g., 2009 and 2010 data in a 2019 publication) but this does not alter the argument being made (which is historically based). In essence, the author […]
Tags: #Authoritarianism #Democracy #Development #Development Studies #History #Islam #Participation #Politics #Power #Underdevelopment
China’s Military Strategy since 1949
M. Taylor Fravel is Professor in, and Director of, the Security Studies Program at MIT. His 2019 Princeton University Press book, “Active Defense: China’s Military Strategy since 1949” presents a detailed, historical analysis of Chinese military strategies, as well as reasons for the shifts undertaken. The book follows a dissertation type format (reiterating the gap […]
Medieval Ethiopian Diplomacy with Latin Europe
Verena Krebs authored a unique and rich historical text on the rationale and motivation of Ethiopian leadership to send off international delegations, particularly to Europe, in the Middle Ages. “Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe” (2021, Palgrave) is extensively researched. The author has a PhD from both Germany and Ethiopia. For historians, […]
How The West Came To Rule
This is a 2015 book that seeks to reorient the history of capitalism by Anievas and Nisancioglu. Published by Pluto Press, “How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism” offers depth of conceptual, historical and theoretical analysis to challenge dominant narratives (following the financial crisis, which – if the idea persisted – […]
Tags: #Capitalism #History #Politics #Power
The Japanese Empire
Published by Cambridge University Press, this 2017 book (The Japanese Empire: Grand Strategy from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War) was written by US Naval War College Professor S. C. M. Paine. The book notes some of the enabling factors for Japanese success, ranging from risk taking (p. 26), to rapidly expanding transportation infrastructure […]
Separate Beds
In Afrikaans, ‘apartheid’ means apartness or separateness. Maureen Lux examines the history of medical apartheid in Canada in the book “Separate Beds: A History of Indian Hospitals in Canada, 1920s-1980s” (2016), published by the University of Toronto Press. The author is a professor of history. A few of the chapters draw on published materials (articles). […]
Tags: #Apartheid #Canada #Colonialism #Colonization #History #Power
Remapping Ethiopia
At the International Conference of Ethiopian Studies in Japan in 1997, scholars proposed a book that would reflect on the transition from the Derg to the EPRDF era, and what the transitions meant for communities across the country. The result was a 2002 book, “Mapping Ethiopia: Socialism & After”, published by Ohio University Press and […]
Tags: #Development Studies #Ethiopia #History #International development #Power
About me
Logan Cochrane
Logan is a 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 twenty 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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