Confidence Mbang is a legal practitioner based in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria. He is legal head of the firm Confidence Mbang Legal (CML) and founder of Morelaw, a legal services advisory in multiple aspects of law. A constitutional law and human rights enthusiast, Mr. Mbang is an associate of the Institute of Chartered Mediators and Conciliators (ICMC) and an appointee to the Special Envoy for West Africa with the International Human Rights Protection Service in the United States. Mr. Mbang has represented young people of the Abi/Yakurr Federal Constituency at the Niger Delta Youth Parliament (NDYP). He is an awardee of the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies (CSLS), an Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) Ranger, and a member of the Citizens’ Liberties Committee (CLC) of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).

“Brian Kaller is a journalist with the soul of a cultural anthropologist. He closely observed the daily life of his adopted country, and took the time to do what so few younger men these days bother to do: talk to the old people, and hear their stories.”
–Rod Dreher, author of Crunchy Cons, The Benedict Option and Live Not by Lies

Brian Kaller worked as a reporter and editor in the United States before moving to rural Ireland for two decades. He writes a weekly newspaper column on sustainable living, and has also written for The American Conservative, First Things, Resilience, Mother Earth News and Quillette. He has appeared on Irish television and his work has been featured on the popular BBC television series QI. He recently returned to his native Missouri.

Kakhaber Kalichava received his Ph.D. from Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University in 2019, with a focus on recent conflicts in Georgia and their broader international implications. Dr. Kalichava completed an MA thesis examining the 2008 Russo-Georgian war, “The Russo-Georgian War of 2008 in Georgian and English-Language Scholarship: A Survey of Historical, Ethnical, Political, and Legal Aspects of the Conflict,” which was published in 2016. Since 2013, Dr. Kalichava has been a contributing member of the editorial team of the popular Georgian historical magazine Istoriani. He also lectures at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, where he teaches graduate courses, and teaches history and global politics at New School International School of Georgia. A past research scholar of the Erasmus Mundus program in Poland, he has also developed an English-language course designed for the program’s exchange students. Dr. Kalichava also serves as an international examiner for history, global politics, and the extended essay components of the international baccalaureate curriculum.

Homam Al Safadi is a 2024 graduate in Information Systems and Technology from the G. F. Morozov Voronezh State University of Forestry and Technologies, where he earned his
degree with honors. He is a researcher and writer in scientific philosophy, with a focus on interdisciplinary research. His work has been published by various academic journals. In addition to his research, he also designed and coded the software program “Recognition and Classification Program of Human and Gorilla Skeletal Structures,” which is officially registered with the Russian government.

Barnaby Conrad (1922-2013) was an American author, artist, nightclub proprietor, bullfighter, and filmmaker. After graduating from Yale, Conrad served from 1943 to 1946 as the U.S. vice consul in Seville, Málaga, and Barcelona. While in Spain, he studied bullfighting and became the only American to have fought in that country, Mexico, and Peru. In 1947, he served as secretary to Sinclair Lewis, the first American author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. John Steinbeck chose Conrad’s 1952 novel Matador as his favorite book of the year, and it was translated into over 20 languages. Conrad started the Santa Barbara Writers Conference in 1973, inviting well-known authors such as Eudora Welty, Ray Bradbury, Gore Vidal, Joan Didion, and Ross Macdonald. His charcoal portraits of Truman Capote, James Michener, and Alex Haley are in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.

Editor: Barnaby Conrad III (b. 1952) majored in painting at Yale and became an artist, art critic, and author of twelve non-fiction books, including Absinthe: History in a Bottle, Ghost Hunting in Montana, and Jacques Villeglé and the Streets of Paris. A former magazine editor at Horizon and Forbes Life, he was a special correspondent in Paris for the San Francisco Chronicle and now teaches aspiring authors at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. He and his family live in Accomac, Virginia and San Francisco.

Dr. John A. Gentry teaches at the School of Defense and Strategic Studies at Missouri State University. For twelve years, he was an intelligence analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he mainly worked on economic issues associated with the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. For two of those years, he was senior analyst on the staff of the National Intelligence Officer for Warning. Dr. Gentry is a retired U.S. Army Reserve officer, with most assignments in special operations and intelligence arenas. Previously, he taught at Georgetown University, Columbia University, and the National Intelligence University. He writes regularly on intelligence and security issues. He is the author of Neutering the CIA: Why US Intelligence Versus Trump Has Long-Term Consequences (2023) and about 40 articles and book chapters on intelligence topics. He has an economics background and received his Ph.D. in political science from George Washington University. Follow him at @gentry_johna.

Gregory Novak received his Ph.D. (2004) from Northern Illinois University, where he studied intellectual history. He has taught religion, history, and philosophy at Olney Friends School in Ohio and Canterbury School in Indiana. He is the author of three novels under his pseudonym, Jay Jordan Hawke. These include: Pukawiss the Outcast (a Lambda Literary Award finalist in 2014), A Scout is Brave (Rainbow Award winner in 2015) and Onwaachige the Dreamer. This is his first work of nonfiction.

Gary L. Rose, Ph.D., is Professor of Politics and Scholar in Residence at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut. A college instructor for nearly five decades, Professor Rose has authored and edited fifteen books on presidential politics, Constitutional law, and Connecticut’s state and local government. His Constitutional law book, Shaping a Nation (2010), published in English and Chinese, was recommended by the National Association of Scholars for colleges and universities that have common reading programs. Professor Rose’s book, Haywire (2017) meticulously tracked every dimension of the 2016 presidential contest and is one of the most comprehensive and detailed treatments of a presidential election ever written. His acclaimed book The American Presidency Under Siege (1997) was favorably reviewed in the American Political Science Review. In addition to his teaching and writing, Professor Rose provides routine political commentary for national, state and local media. His comments have been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, and the Hartford Courant. He has appeared as a political commentator on NBC Nightly News, Fox News, and several local news shows in Connecticut. A recipient of several teaching and scholarship awards, Professor Rose often serves as a speaker for civic and business organizations. In 2011, he was named Connecticut Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).

Major Bruce H. “Doc” Norton, USMC (Ret) is a decorated Vietnam War veteran, author, and former oral historian for the Marine Corps. Dr. Harry Kantrovich is a retired Chief of Naval Operations Command Master Chief, playwright, and award-winning director.