Oh, what do we do with Thomas Friedman? The naif let loose in the big scary world? Last Sunday, he wrote about an amazing new factor in the global economy: people selling used clothing! How he missed eBay, I’ll never know, let alone the world of consignment stores and high-end charity thrift stores. This isn’t… [Read More]
Blog
Category: Emerging Markets
Band-Aid, Ethiopia, famine, and other fun stuff
In 1984, singer Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats was so outraged by the news videos of Ethiopian famine that he organized a fundraising organization, Band Aid. He convinced a group of English and Irish musicians to record a song, the proceeds of which would be spent to bring food to Ethiopia. “Feed the World”… [Read More]
Guinea-Bissau: Warriors at Work
The Africa blogging project has been delayed by reading! I just finished another long book about a small country, Warriors at Work: How Guinea Was Really Set Free, by Mustafah Dhada. It’s the story of the country’s revolution against Portugal. Guinea, now known as Guinea-Bissau, attracted Portuguese slave traders in 1446. Portugal didn’t achieve control… [Read More]
The Gambia: The World and a Very Small Place in Africa
The African-Nation-A-Week project was delayed by a long book: The World and a Very Small Place in Africa: A History of Globalization in Niumi, The Gambia. But what a fascinating book! Donald Wright takes a district in The Gambia, Niumi, and uses it as a starting point to explore the effects of globalization on the… [Read More]
