Routledge Revivals to republish 15 books by Robin Cohen
Fifteen books authored, co-authored and edited by Emeritus Professor Robin Cohen over the course of his more than 50-year career, which began with a focus on the struggle against apartheid and went on to make major contributions to the study of migration, are being republished by Routledge as part of its Revivals series.
Routledge Revivals reissues previously out of print and unavailable titles by some of the world’s most eminent academic scholars. Books are republished in hardback and electronic format, often with a new preface.
Professor Cohen, who was Professor of Development Studies at ODID between 2006 and 2013, started his academic career at the University of Ibadan in 1967. His initial academic focus was on the emergence of an African working class and how and why popular struggles in South African might challenge the apartheid regime in South Africa. Subsequent work has made significant contributions to the field of migration studies with a particular focus on diasporas.
Professor Cohen noted that revisiting his past books in this way had sparked interesting memories from the time of their original publication.
“Though my role in the anti-apartheid struggle was infinitesimally small, I was close to some of the key figures in the African National Congress (ANC) and Unity Movement,” Professor Cohen said. “Providing new prefaces to my books of that period gave me an opportunity to relive those heady moments and recall some of the circumstances in which they emerged.
One vivid memory was when I was summonsed to the ANC offices in Penton Street, London, to be confronted by an old friend and others clutching a well-worn copy of my book, Endgame in South Africa. Though the book was broadly in line with the aims of the anti-apartheid struggle, I was sternly admonished: Why had I once put the word ‘freedom’ in inverted commas and why did I doubt that a newly elected ANC would be able to deal with the demands of unemployed youth? Perhaps an unusual example of ‘research impact’!”
Professor Cohen has held full professorships at the Universities of the West Indies and Warwick and taught at Birmingham, Stanford, Toronto and Berkeley. He also served as Dean of Humanities at the University of Cape Town.
Below is a list of the 15 books, with their original publication dates, which are being republished in batches between July 2023 and May 2024:
Republished in 2023
- (1976) The Development of an African Working Class: Studies in Class Formation and Action, edited with Richard Sandbrook
- (1979) Forced Labour in Colonial Africa, editor
- (1979) Peasants and Proletarians: the Struggles of Third World Workers, edited with Peter Gutkind and Phyllis Brazier
- (1987) International Labour: The Making of a New Working Class, edited with Peter Gutkind and Rosalind Boyd
- (1991) Contested Domains: Debates in International Labour Studies
To be republished in 2024
- (1974) Labour and Politics in Nigeria
- (1978) African Labor History, edited with Peter Gutkind and Jean Copans
- (1983) African Islands and Enclaves, editor
- (1983) Crisis in the Caribbean, edited with Fitzroy Ambursley
- (1986) Endgame in South Africa: The Changing Ideology and Social Structure of South Africa
- (1987) The New Helots: Migrants in the International Division of Labour
- (1988) Popular Struggles in South Africa, edited with William Cobbett
- (1990) Repression and Resistance: Insider Accounts of Apartheid, edited with Abebe Zegeye and Yvonne Muthien
- (1990) Reluctant Hosts: Europe and its Refugees, edited with Daniele Joly
- (1991) Frontiers of Identity: The British and the Others
Access the titles here.