David M. Gordon (Ph.D. Princeton University) is Professor of History at Bowdoin College. He has authored two books, an edited collection, and numerous articles on southern and central African history. The experience of growing up under apartheid and struggling against it as a South African student activist has informed his research and teaching of African history for nearly two decades. His interests include the economic, environmental, and cultural history of southern and central Africa, indigenous knowledge, and, in his most recent book, Invisible Agents: Spirits in a Central African History, how spiritual beliefs have influenced human agency.