An absence of historical context can undermine the effectiveness of development efforts, but recognizing the weight of the past can be overwhelming. This lectures uses an analysis of endeavours to secure rural prosperity in various parts of the world over the past century to propose durational ethics and deliberate learning as a way out of this dilemma.
Holly Hanson is Professor Emeritus at Mount Holyoke College. She has a variety of research interests, including agrarian change in Africa, social history of the Buganda kingdom, precolonial African political culture, and globalization as a historical process. These interests recently culminated in her new book, Landed Obligation: The Practice of Power in Buganda, which is part of the Heinemann Social History of Africa series. Hanson has also published numerous articles on a variety of topics, from Bugandan women to global inequality.