Howard W French
Howard W French is the author of the world-acclaimed book China's
Second Continent: How a Million Migrants are Building a New Empire
in Africa. He is a professor at the renowned Columbia University Graduate
School of Journalism in the United States. A journalist, author, and expert
in foreign affairs, he was most recently a senior foreign correspondent with
the prestigious New York Times. French taught in university in the Ivory
Coast in the 1980s before becoming a reporter. He has reported extensively
on the political affairs of Western and Central Africa. These reports were
the basis for the book A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and
Hope of Africa. French has also reported on the political and social affairs
in China, where he covered on the growth of civil society, government
crackdown of dissent in the Dongzhou protests of 2005, and the Sichuan
earthquake of 2008. His most recent work for The New York Times is
centered on China where he was the paper's Shanghai bureau chief.
French was New York Times bureau chief for the Caribbean and Central
America from 1990 to 1994; he covered Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, El
Salvador, and numerous other countries. From 1994 to 1998, French
covered West and Central Africa for the Times, reporting on wars in Liberia,
Sierra Leone and Central Africa, with particular attention to the fall of the
longtime dictator of Zaire Mobutu Sese Seko. From 1998 to 2003, French
was Tokyo Bureau Chief for the Times, covering Japan and the Koreas. In
addition to covering China as Shanghai Bureau Chief for the Times, French
worked as a weekly columnist on regional affairs for The International
Herald Tribune.
Mr.