Michael Crowder

Academic career

Michael commenced his career as a secretary at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ibadan. In 1964 he was Visiting Lecturer in African History at the University of California, Berkeley and Director of the Institute of African Studies at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone in 1965.

While in Nigeria from 1968 to 1978 he was appointed as Research Professor and Director of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ife (Now Obafemi Awolowo University). Afterwards, he became Professor of History at Ahmadu Bello University and finally as Research Professor in History at the Centre for Cultural Studies at the University of Lagos in the 1970s. He worked as an editor for the British Magazine History Today after his return to London in 1979. He was also Visiting Fellow at the Centre for International Studies at the LSE, and Professor of History at the University of Botswana in the 1980s while he worked as a Consultant Editor until his death.

Selected books

• The Story of Nigeria (1962)
• Eze Goes to School, co-authored with Onuora Nzekwu (1963)
• West Africa Under Colonial Rule (1968)
• West African Resistance (1971)
• West Africa: An Introduction to its History (1977)
• Akin Goes to School, co-authored with Christie Ade Ajayi (1978)
• Colonial West Africa (1978)
• The Cambridge History of Africa (1984)