Dr. Aran S. MacKinnon is Professor of African History, and Chair of the Department of History and Geography at Georgia College. He is the former Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies and of Global Studies and at the University of West Georgia. He earned his Ph.D. in history from the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London, U.K, his M.A. in history from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa and his B.A. in history from Queen's University, Kingston, Canada. He has studied, worked and taught in Canada, the U.K., the U.S. and South Africa. He is the author of The Making of South Africa. Culture and Politics (Pearson 2004, Second Edition, 2012), co-editor with Elaine MacKinnon of Places of Encounter, Time, Place and Connectivity in World History, Volumes 1 and 2 (Westview, 2012) and co-author of An Introduction to Global Studies (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010) as well as numerous articles on South African history in various scholarly journals.