Dinner with Mobutu

About the Book

Oil field worker, soldier, Washington bureaucrat, professor, farmer, builder, academic dean, and international consultant. These are some of Jake Smith’s job titles chronicled in this memoir. Dining with dictators is just one small episode in an eclectic career. This book documents Smith’s life and times --- from a small town in rural Louisiana to presidential palaces in Africa; from struggles to survive on a Tennessee farm to struggles in academia, where the stakes are small, but the fights are vicious. Dinner with Mobutu covers Smith’s 40-year fascination with Africa --- from student to scholar to political consultant.

About the Author

From the cotton fields and oil fields of Louisiana, Jasper K. “Jake” Smith has traveled a long way. Armed with a Master’s degree in African Studies from Howard University and a Ph.D. from Boston University, Smith’s academic career began as a professor before moving on to serve as an Associate Dean at BU and as Academic Dean at Mahkota College in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Smith has consulted with democratically-elected governments in Africa and has traveled in Congo, Zaire, Central African Republic, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Africa and Gabon. He and his wife, Anna, live in Rhode Island.