Robin Cohen is Emeritus Professor of Development Studies at the University of Oxford. For the first decade of his academic career, he worked on comparative labour issues. His books included Labour and Politics in Nigeria (1974) and the co-edited collections The development of an African working class (1975), International Labour and the Third World (1987), African Labor History (1978) and the current title, Peasants and Proletarians. He subsequently wrote on the themes of migration, globalization and diasporas. His best-known work is Global diasporas: An introduction (3rd edition, 2022).
Original Reviews of African Islands and Enclaves: ‘This book is highly recommended because most of the case studies exhibit well-organised, carefully edited state-of-the-art scholarship (including excellent bibliographies) on a number of Africa’s least researched units’ – John L Collier Canadian Journal of African Studies, 19 (2) 1985. ‘The scope of African Islands and Enclaves is one of its strengths, and the book should be useful to anyone with a serious interest in comparative political economy’ – Mari G. Borstelmann The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 18 (3) 1985. ‘The relentless impact of change in the global economy, combined with local adaptations and perversions, is the lynchpin of the Cohen collection: an informed, international and critical assembly of authors and cases’ – Timothy M. Shaw Development Policy Review, 3 (2) 1985. ‘This volume deals with an at first sight enigmatic and debatable subject – that of the islands and enclaves of the [African] continent. … All in all, a useful book which reminds us that the islands are far from being paradises lost and that crises can be more accentuated there than elsewhere’ – Jean Copans Le Monde Diplomatique, January 1984, p 18. [translated from the French].