Michelle Gavin gives us a highly readable but carefully documented insight into the emerging political role of the youth in countries across Africa. Her analysis, including the fascinating use of social media information, illustrates the role this phenomenon may play in the future of Africa and its impact on the world.

Russ Feingold, former U.S. Senator (Wisconsin) and Special Envoy for the African Great Lakes

Michelle Gavin combines a policymaker's view, a traveler's curiosity, and an abiding empathy. She has written the rare book that blends together deep research, high-level experience, and a capacity to look at the world through the eyes of young people. Age of Change is filled with rich detail about Africa's emerging importance, its ongoing challenges, and the youth who will inevitability shape the future of the continent and the wider world. Read this book if you want to understand African politics and the internal and external forces remaking it.

Ben Rhodes, former Deputy National Security Advisor of the United States and author of After the Fall: The Rise of Authoritarianism in the World We Made

This is a must-read book for a forward-looking analysis of African politics, and what an increasingly youthful, digitally-connected, and urban-based population will mean for disrupting status quo political regimes. Awareness of the driving forces of such political change and discontinuity suggests new approaches for external powers who wish to build effective relationships-cultivating broader networks with a more diverse set of stakeholders in society and focusing on shared interests with societies rather than a narrow set of elite powerholders. By centering the demands, concerns, and strategies of engagement of young Africans, this book provides a clear view of changes on the horizon, and how foreign policy can adapt to meet the next generation.

Rachel Beatty Riedl, Director of the Center on Global Democracy, Brooks School of Public Policy, Cornell University