Weeping Kings and Wild Boars

Moments & Magic in Forty Years Trying to Save the World

"Heartwarming, stark, and fascinating, this memoir will take you beyond the borders of several countries and your own world."

  Somehow they trusted me.

Kings, Prime Ministers, dedicated civil servants and a few of the world’s poorest folk shared their aspirations and agonies, and together we worked for change. Weeping Kings and Wild Boars, a collection of memoir essays, tells their stories and mine drawn from my career as an overseas agricultural economist.

A reigning monarch sat on a darkened veranda with me, shedding tears of frustration. In a single sentence, a teenage village girl taught this “foreign expert” the true meaning of poverty and human worth. Before her assassination, one of Lesotho’s royal family and I worked quietly to help desegregate South Africa thus linking that nation and hers. My life’s kaleidoscope has been graced with remarkable people, powerful moments of change, unspeakable loss, and glimpses into age-old cultures. -Jerry Eckert

"I knew the author and was heartened to hear of the publication of his memoir after his untimely death. He was a great human and a great economist. This book is what he wanted to exist in the world -- which was a simple testimony to the importance of agriculture and economics in a world that sometimes undervalues their relevance to social justice and humanitarian issues. Jerry was an economist. But if you think that means he didn't care about human hearts or dreams or hopes, reconsider. That's what this book does: reminds us of how one man, and his work, can change nations and politics."
~Award winning author, Laura Pritchett