Allan Cooper – författare

This collection takes on one of the most important and vexing issues in African development - the role played by African states in under-development on the continent - and shows how empowering resilient precolonial communities offers under-explored routes forward.Rather than comparing African states to states elsewhere, this book takes a unique bottom-up approach and compares how major ethnic communities within Africa have developed over time under various state systems. It begins with an investigation into major precolonial societies and the way in which they were affected by the slave trade and colonialism. It then offers individual case studies from the length and breadth of the continent, and in so doing, provides a near-comprehensive account of historical African community and state formation, including coverage of under-researched peoples such as the central African Fang, as well as of the Kongo, Benin, Akan, Kru, Oromo, and Ovambo communities. Each case study analyzes how postcolonial African states have functioned as self-interested political entities often times at the expense of the economic and political development of its Indigenous communities, who are forced into a pluralist state systems that set them in economic and political competition with each other. True improvement in the lives of everyday citizens proves to be possible only by empowering traditional knowledges and practices - and with that, Indigenous communities' capabilities for economic and political self-governance.Written by a significant contingent of African scholars, this collection contributes in its very practice to the decolonial policies it argues for, and is a must-read for researchers, upper-level students, and practitioners and policymakers interested in African development, African history, and post- and decolonial approaches to development.

Conversations with Donald Hall offers a unique glimpse into the creative process of a major American poet, writer, editor, anthologist, and teacher. The volume probes in depth Hall's evolving views on poetry, poets, and the creative process over a period of more than sixty years. Donald Hall (1928-2018) reveals vivid, funny, and moving anecdotes about T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and the sculptor Henry Moore; he talks about his excitement on his return to New Hampshire and the joys of his marriage with Jane Kenyon; and he candidly discusses his loss and grief when Kenyon died in 1995 at the age of forty-seven. The thirteen interviews range from a detailed exploration of the composition of ""Ox Cart Man"" to the poems that make up Without, an almost unbearable poetry of grief that was written following Jane Kenyon's death. The book also follows Hall into old age, when he turned to essay writing and the reflections on aging that make up Essays after Eighty. This moving and insightful collection of interviews is crucial for anyone interested in poetry and the creative process, the techniques and achievements of modern American poetry, and the elusive psychology of creativity and loss.

Conversations with Donald Hall offers a unique glimpse into the creative process of a major American poet, writer, editor, anthologist, and teacher. The volume probes in depth Hall's evolving views on poetry, poets, and the creative process over a period of more than sixty years. Donald Hall (1928-2018) reveals vivid, funny, and moving anecdotes about T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and the sculptor Henry Moore; he talks about his excitement on his return to New Hampshire and the joys of his marriage with Jane Kenyon; and he candidly discusses his loss and grief when Kenyon died in 1995 at the age of forty-seven. The thirteen interviews range from a detailed exploration of the composition of ""Ox Cart Man"" to the poems that make up Without, an almost unbearable poetry of grief that was written following Jane Kenyon's death. The book also follows Hall into old age, when he turned to essay writing and the reflections on aging that make up Essays after Eighty. This moving and insightful collection of interviews is crucial for anyone interested in poetry and the creative process, the techniques and achievements of modern American poetry, and the elusive psychology of creativity and loss.