Africa and International Development takes a multidisciplinary approach and our readings reflects this, with topics from theories on development, history of poverty and underdevelopment in Africa, to African politics, etc. The Edinburgh University Library is incredibly well-stocked, and also holds a rich variety of relevant electronic journals. The list below gives you a flavour of the kinds of readings that we suggest in preparation of the course:
- Ake C., Development and Democracy in Africa, Brookings Institution, 1996
- Rist, G., The History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith, Zed Books, 2008
- Meredith M., The State of Africa. A History of 50 Years of Independence, The Free Press, 2005
- Sen A.K., Development As Freedom, Knopf, Harvard, 1999
- Collier P. The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It, Oxford University Press, 2008
- Kothari U. (eds), A Radical History of Development Studies: Individuals, Institutions and Ideologies, Zed Books, 2005.
- Mosse D., Cultivating Development: An Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice, Pluto Press, 2004
- Chambers R., Whose reality counts? Putting the first last, Itdg Publishing, 1997.
- Easterli W., The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill And So Little Good, Penguin Group, 2007
- Ferguson J., The Anti-politics Machine, Routledge, 1994
- Bebbington A., Hickey S. and Mitlin D.C., Can NGOs make a difference? The challenge of development alternatives, Zed Books, 2008
- Nugent, P. Africa since Independence, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004
- Abrahamsen, R. Disciplining Democracy. Development Discourse and Good Governance in Africa, 2000
- L. Whitfield The Politics of Aid. African Strategies for Dealing with Donors, Oxford University Press, 2007
If you are going to join us in September, please do as many readings as you can from the list above. In particular Rist (2008); Collier (2008); Easterli (2007); Sen (1999) and Nugent (2004) form a good pre-session list of sources that will be relevant for your studies in Edinburgh.