About Toby Green, Historian and Writer

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I've written several books on West African history, and also on the history of the Inquisition, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the early colonization of Mexico. I also wrote two novels published by the Tanzanian publisher Mkuki na Nyota, Imaginary Crimes and Colombian Roulette. My best-known book is probably A Fistful of Shells, which was awarded the 2019 British Academy Book Prize and the 2020 Jerry Bentley Prize in World History, as well as being a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize for History and the Wolfson History Prize.

I've tried to develop some materials for the teaching of West African history. In the UK I helped get a new examination option for 18-year-olds called 'African Kingdoms' off the ground, and in West Africa I worked with historians in Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and The Gambia to develop new teaching resources for the WASSCE qualification. Check out https://africankingdoms.co.uk and https://wasscehistorytextbook.com 

I worked a lot on the impacts of Covid-19 restrictions on global inequality and human rights. The first edition of my book The Covid Consensus: The New Politics of Global Inequality came out in spring 2021; and the coauthored second edition with the journalistThomas Fazi, entitled The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor - A Critique from the Left, in January 2023.  I also wrote more than 50 articles on the pandemic,  hosted 10+ podcasts for Collateral Global, and produced the mini-docu series Daily Life in Post-Pandemic Senegal.