Ernest Harsch holds a PhD in Sociology from the New School for Social Research in New York. He is currently a research scholar affiliated with Columbia University’s Institute of African Studies. Throughout a professional career as a journalist, he wrote mainly on international events, most extensively on Africa. His recent books are Thomas Sankara: An African Revolutionary, (Ohio University Press, 2014) and Burkina Faso: Power, Protest and Revolution (Zed Books, 2017), after earlier books on the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the Angolan civil war. He worked on African issues for 25 years at the United Nations Secretariat in New York, including as managing editor of the UN’s quarterly journal Africa Renewal.