James Dawson, the writer. lives in Madison, Wisconsin. For the last eight years, he has been vice president of American Breeders Service (ABS), the world’s largest privately owned bovine genetics company.

Formerly he directed projects in Asia, Africa and Latin America as Overseas Director of Oxfam America. In addition, he was Peace Corps Director in Fiji, Tuvalu and Tanzania, a Port Authority Executive in the Virgin Islands, Associated Press reporter in the Eastern Caribbean, day care executive in the Caribbean, labor organizer in Nashville and Detroit, editor of the Michigan Challenger newspaper, Peace Corps trainee in Israel, Peace Corps
Volunteer in India, civil rights activist and community organizer in the US.

He has served on the board of TechnoServe, the Boston chapter of the Global Affairs Council, the US Feed Grains Council, the Corporate Council for Africa, the Governor’s International Trade Council of Wisconsin, the Emerging Markets Committee of the US Department of Agriculture and President Clinton’s Council for Egypt. He was also a Robert F. Kennedy Fellow and a recipient of the Centennial Medal from Florida A & M University.

While working for the Associated Press, he wrote articles that appeared in newspapers in the United States and around the world. He also published an article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy entitled “Nonprofits Need Their Own Perestroika To Be Effective in Today’s Changing World”. Currently he is compiling his work on the privatization of agriculture in Poland which he hopes will contribute to the body of knowledge on the transition process in East and Central Europe.

(This book is arranged randomly. It reflects my desire to mirror the interconnected, interdependent, free, yet somewhat ordered universe in which we live. Autobiographical sketches appear at the end.)