WORK IN THE ACADEMY
Academic positions
Work with African Colleagues
Work with African Colleagues
I'm lucky enough to be a professor of African history at King's College London, and a fellow of the British Academy, where I chair the committee for publishing sources on African history. I'm also an Honorary Fellow of the Historical Association, an editor of the journal African Economic History, and a member of the Executive Editorial B
I'm lucky enough to be a professor of African history at King's College London, and a fellow of the British Academy, where I chair the committee for publishing sources on African history. I'm also an Honorary Fellow of the Historical Association, an editor of the journal African Economic History, and a member of the Executive Editorial Board of the Journal of West African History. I've been a jury member for various book awards including the ASAUK Book Prize and the Frederick Douglass Book Prize. My research projects have been funded by the AHRC, British Academy, British Library, European Union, and Leverhulme Trust.
Work with African Colleagues
Work with African Colleagues
Work with African Colleagues
This is a picture taken in Bissau at an event with dear friends Carlos Cardoso (Bissau) and Hassoum Ceesay (The Gambia), and our late colleague Leopoldo Amado.
I've been fortunate to work with colleagues across the world. I've co-organised events with institutions in Angola, Brazil, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and The Ga
This is a picture taken in Bissau at an event with dear friends Carlos Cardoso (Bissau) and Hassoum Ceesay (The Gambia), and our late colleague Leopoldo Amado.
I've been fortunate to work with colleagues across the world. I've co-organised events with institutions in Angola, Brazil, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and The Gambia, and been involved with a new research network in Lusophone Africa (https://resal.website). I also co-organised two workshops with the musicologist Lucy Duran (SOAS) funded by the British Academy, bringing together historians and musicians from the Greater Senegambia region of West Africa.
Books
Work with African Colleagues
Books
I've written and edited too many of these. In the early part of my academic career, I wrote The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300-1589 (CUP, 2012), and Inquisition: The Reign of Fear (Macmillan/St. Martin's Press, 2007). More recently, I've written a macro history of precolonial West Africa, A Fistful of She
I've written and edited too many of these. In the early part of my academic career, I wrote The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300-1589 (CUP, 2012), and Inquisition: The Reign of Fear (Macmillan/St. Martin's Press, 2007). More recently, I've written a macro history of precolonial West Africa, A Fistful of Shells (2019, Allen Lane and University of Chicago Press), and just published a microhistory of Cacheu in 17th-century Guinea-Bissau called The Heretic of Cacheu (2025, same publishers).
I've also edited and co-edited a number of books, including (with Filipa Ribeiro da Silva and Philip Havik), The Inquisition Trial of Crispina Peres of Cacheu, Guinea-Bissau (1646-1668)(OUP, 2021), which was awarded the American Library Association's Best Historical Materials Award.
See the Books page for more details.