Edwin S. Munger

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A professor of geography and renowned Africa expert. During his ICWA Fellowship and work with the American Universities Field Staff, Mr. Munger lived in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa. He continued his work in Africa in the 1960s, working as a Peace Corps evaluator in Uganda and Botswana. He was appointed to a State Department advisory council on African affairs in 1971. For fourteen years he served as president of the Leakey Foundation. During that time he began the foundation’s Baldwin Fellowships, which have helped African scholars receive advanced degrees in archeology and related areas. Mr. Munger also started the Cape of Good Hope Foundation, which has supported black universities in southern Africa with millions of dollars in books. He became a professor at the California Institute of Technology in 1961 and won the top teaching prize awarded by the student body in 1976. He became a professor emeritus in 1988. He amassed the largest private collection of books on sub-Saharan Africa in the United States, consisting of over 60,000 volumes. He is also the author of fourteen books, including Bechuanaland (1966) Afrikaner and African Nationalism (1967), The Afrikaners (1979), Rwanda (1990), Cultures, Chess and Art: A Collector’s Odyssey Across Seven Continent: Volume 1 Sub Saharan Africa (1996); Vol. 2 The Americas (1998)and Vol. 3 Pacific Islands and the Asian Rim (1999).