Dr Basil Davidson MC
Dr Basil Davidson was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from SOAS in 1996 in recognition of his pioneering writing on African history. He began his prolific body of work on the subject with the publication in 1959 of Old Africa Rediscovered. Throughout his distinguished career he sought to ensure that his subject was enjoyed by a wide readership through the publication of books for schools and a series for television.
As a journalist in the 1950s Dr Davidson reported from Africa on anti-colonial struggles especially against the Portugese. Committed to African freedom, he was inspired to research Africa's pre-colonial past and more recently his work has concentrated on the nation-state of independent Africa.
Dr Davidson has held visiting professorships at the Universities of Ghana, California and Edinburgh as well as becoming a Simon Senior Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. His status as an expert and pioneer in his field has been widely recognised. In addition to his SOAS accolade, he is an Honorary Fellow of the Centre of West African Studies at the University of Birmingham and holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria.
