A Rope from the Sky: Book Talk with Zach Vertin
For half a decade, civil war has raged in South Sudan. Zach Vertin’s new book, A Rope from the Sky: The Making and Unmaking of the World's Newest State, charts the country’s fall from a success story to a cautionary tale. With South Sudan trying to parlay a September ceasefire into long-term peace, his reflections have never been more relevant.
Join the CSIS Africa Program on February 5, 2019 for a discussion with Zach Vertin on his new book. Drawing on personal experiences and stakeholder interviews, former diplomat Zach Vertin explores how and why things went awry. His work on South Sudan’s “making and unmaking” raises questions about whether the country can be remade—and how the U.S. can avoid future nation-building misadventures.
Zach Vertin is a writer, foreign policy analyst, and former U.S. diplomat. He is currently a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and a Fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center. He previously served in the Obama Administration as an Adviser to the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan and Sudan South Sudan, and prior to that he was a Senior Analyst for the International Crisis Group, working both in the Horn of Africa and on multilateral affairs and UN peace operations in New York. He has written or commented for: The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, The Economist, CNN, and the BBC. He lives in Washington, DC.
This event is made possible through general support to CSIS.
