D. Elwood Dunn is Professor and Departmental Chair of Political Science at the University of the South. He has taught at Seton Hall and Fordham Universities, Cuttington College, and the University of Liberia. He served in the government of his native Liberia (1974-1980), becoming a member of the cabinet. Dunn was editor of the Liberian Studies Journal, 1985-1995.Amos J. Beyan is Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History at Western Michigan University. He has taught at the Kakata Teacher Training Institute, the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, and Youngstown State University.Carl Patrick Burrowes is Associate Professor of Communications at Howard University. He has worked both as a journalist and a teacher of mass communication. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, West Africa, and Emerge.

A rich and colorful mosaic of Liberia's past…those seeking to understand Liberia's "present predicaments" (its civil war and warlordism, elections without democracy, and "privatization" of the state so that it no longer serves its people), and who are looking for "lessons" from its past that might be usefully applied to solving some of its current problems, will find that Dunn and his colleagues have produced a very good resource…highly recommend for readers looking for a single source of background information on Liberia.