John David Ragan has a PhD in history from New York University and degrees from the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, the University of Cincinnati, and Binghamton University. He has traveled in fifty countries, across Europe, North Africa, Latin America, New Zealand, Australia, Southeast Asia and the Himalayas, studying French in Paris, Arabic in Cairo and Tunis, German in Berlin, and Spanish in Salamanca and Mexico City. He is a working member of Laborers Union Local 942, Fairbanks, Alaska, and has published two books and numerous articles.