Book excerpt: Duncan Clarke was founder and Chairman of the Board, Global Pacific & Partners, a worldwide private advisory firm with vintage of around 40 years, the story told in Three Decades in the Long Grass, 2014. Born in Salisbury, 1948, and raised in Rhodesia, he gained the PhD (Economics) at University of St Andrews, 1975. He has published extensively on Africa and been advisor to governments and companies worldwide, and focused on geo-economics, Africa and world oil, historiography, and corporate strategy for the global upstream industry. The most recent books, published by Royal Sable Publishing, founded by the author in 2019, have been The Quiet Rhodesian: Silent Servant, 1909-1981, published in 2023, and Accidental Author: Fifty Years Writing, Africa and the World, in 2023, The Last Rhodesians: Society Adrift, in 2022, and Rhodes' Ghost: The Conquest of Zambesia, in 2020. Another book, Cecil Rhodes' Library, will be released in early 2024, and Zambesia: The Literary Safari, in late 2024. Details on fifty years-plus of writing, travel and related endeavours are found on duncan-clarke.com.