Mary Catherine Bateson is Robinson Professor Emerita of Anthropology at George Mason University in Virginia. She followed her parents, Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, into anthropology, with an emphasis on linguistics and Middle Eastern studies. She has taught at Harvard, Amherst College, and Northeastern University, and served as visiting faculty at Spelman College, Ateneo de Manila University in Manila, and Damavand College and the University of Tehran in Iran. She holds a joint doctorate in linguistics and Middle Eastern studies from Harvard as well as six honorary doctorates and is the author of five books (including a memoir of her parents) and coauthor of two others, Thinking AIDS with Richard Goldsby and Angels Fear with Gregory Bateson.

Richard A. Goldsby is the Thomas Walton Jr. Memorial Professor Emeritus at Amherst College. Now visiting scientist at MIT's associated Whitehead Institute, he has taught at Amherst, the Universities of Massachusetts and Maryland, Stanford, and Yale, where he was briefly master of Pierson College. He has written books in the areas of immunology, cancer, AIDS, and race. This is the second book he has coauthored with Mary Catherine Bateson.