Robin Law

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Robin C. C. Law (born 1944) is a British Africanist and since 2009 Emeritus Professor of the History of Africa at the University of Stirling. He obtained a BA degree in Literae Humaniores at the University of Oxford in 1967 and a PhD in History at the University of Birmingham in 1972. As a researcher, he worked at the University of Lagos, Nigeria (1966-1969) and at the Centre of West African Studies of the University of Birmingham (1970-1972). He joined the University of Stirling in 1972, and was subsequently Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and Reader, becoming Professor of African History in 1993. [1] [2] [3] He was a Visiting Fellow at the African Studies Centre Leiden (1993-1994), and a visiting professor at York University, Canada (1996-1997) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2000-2001). [1] Law received the Distinguished Africanist award of the African Studies Association of the UK for 2010. [4]

Contents

Publications

Law published many scholarly books and research articles on Africa, including: [2] [5]

Related Research Articles

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The Kingdom of Dahomey was a West African kingdom located within present-day Benin that existed from approximately 1600 until 1904. It developed on the Abomey Plateau amongst the Fon people in the early 17th century and became a regional power in the 18th century by expanding south to conquer key cities like Whydah belonging to the Kingdom of Whydah on the Atlantic coast which granted it unhindered access to the tricontinental Atlantic Slave Trade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dutch West India Company</span> Dutch chartered company responsible for trade and colonization in the New World (1621–1792)

The Dutch West India Company or WIC was a chartered company of Dutch merchants as well as foreign investors, formally known as GWC. Among its founders were Reynier Pauw, Willem Usselincx (1567–1647), and Jessé de Forest (1576–1624). On 3 June 1621, it was granted a charter for a trade monopoly in the Dutch West Indies by the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and given jurisdiction over Dutch participation in the Atlantic slave trade, Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atlantic slave trade</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archibald Dalzel</span> Scottish colonial administrator (c. 1740 – c. 1818)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Triangular trade</span> Trade among three ports or regions

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fon people</span> Gbe ethnic group

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal African Company</span> English trading company

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slave Coast of West Africa</span> Historical name of a region in West Africa

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ouidah</span> Commune and city in Atlantique Department, Benin

Ouidah or Whydah, and known locally as Glexwe, formerly the chief port of the Kingdom of Whydah, is a city on the coast of the Republic of Benin. The commune covers an area of 364 km2 (141 sq mi) and as of 2002 had a population of 76,555 people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Banda people</span> Ethnic group native to Africa

The Banda people are an ethnic group of the Central African Republic. They are likewise found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, and South Sudan. They were severely affected by slave raids of the 19th century and slave trading out of Africa. Under French colonial rule, most converted to Christianity but retained elements of their traditional religious systems and values.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Henniker, 1st Baron Henniker</span> British merchant and Member of Parliament

John Henniker, 1st Baron Henniker, known previously as John Henniker then as Sir John Henniker, 2nd Baronet, from 1782 to 1800, was a British merchant and Member of Parliament.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in Africa</span> Historical slavery in Africa

Slavery has historically been widespread in Africa. Systems of servitude and slavery were once commonplace in parts of Africa, as they were in much of the rest of the ancient and medieval world. When the trans-Saharan slave trade, Red Sea slave trade, Indian Ocean slave trade and Atlantic slave trade began, many of the pre-existing local African slave systems began supplying captives for slave markets outside Africa. Slavery in contemporary Africa is still practised despite it being illegal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A. G. Hopkins</span> British historian (born 1938)

Antony Gerald Hopkins, is a British historian specialising in the economic history of Africa, European colonialism, and globalisation. He is Emeritus Smuts Professor of Commonwealth History at the University of Cambridge, an Emeritus Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge and a fellow of the British Academy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grand-Popo</span> Commune and city in Mono Department, Benin

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toyin Falola</span> Nigerian historian (born 1953)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dutch Slave Coast</span> Trading posts of the Dutch West India Company on the Slave Coast

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Kristin Mann is an American historian and author renowned for her works on the history of slavery in Africa. in 2002, she was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowships award. She is currently a Professor of History at Emory University in Druid Hills, Georgia, United States.

Toby Green is a British historian of inequality. He is also a Professor of Precolonial and Lusophone African History and Culture at King's College London. He obtained his Doctor of Philosophy in African studies, at the University of Birmingham. He is Chair of the FontesHistoriae Africanae Committee of the British Academy, and has written extensively about African early modern history and colonial African slavery, mainly focused on slavery in the Portuguese colonies.

Capitalism and Slavery is the published version of the doctoral dissertation of Eric Williams, who was the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago in 1962. It advances a number of theses on the impact of economic factors on the decline of slavery, specifically the Atlantic slave trade and slavery in the British West Indies, from the second half of the 18th century. It also makes criticisms of the historiography of the British Empire of the period: in particular on the use of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 as a sort of moral pivot; but also directed against a historical school that saw the imperial constitutional history as a constant advance through legislation. It uses polemical asides for some personal attacks, notably on the Oxford historian Reginald Coupland. Seymour Drescher, a prominent critic among historians of some of the theses put forward in Capitalism and Slavery by Williams, wrote in 1987: "If one criterion of a classic is its ability to reorient our most basic way of viewing an object or a concept, Eric Williams's study supremely passes that test."

References

  1. 1 2 Law, Robin. "Professor Robin Law, About me". stir.ac.uk. University of Stirling. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  2. 1 2 "Professor Robin Law FBA, History of Africa, Elected 2000, Section Early Modern History to 1850". thebritishacademy.ac.uk. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  3. 1 2 "Robin Law Contributor. Professor of African History, University of Stirling, Scotland. Author of The Slave Coast of West Africa, 1550–1750 and others". britannica.com. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  4. "Outstanding African Studies Award". asauk.net. African Studies Association of the UK. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  5. "Law, Robin". Worldcat.org. OCLC . Retrieved 5 October 2024.
  6. Irwin, Graham W. (1 February 1979). "Journal Article. [Review] Robin Law. The Oyo Empire, c. 1600–c. 1836: A West African Imperialism in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade. (Oxford Studies in African Affairs.) Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1977". American Historical Review. 84 (1): 223–224. doi:10.1086/ahr/84.1.223 . Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  7. Oliver, Roland (24 December 2009). "Reviews. Robin Law: The horse in West African history: the role of the horse in the societies of pre-colonial West Africa". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 44 (3): 635. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00144854. S2CID   161403344 . Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  8. Miller, Joseph C. (1993). "Reviews of Books. Robin Law. The Slave Coast of West Africa 1550–1750: The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on an African Society". American Historical Review. 98 (5): 1656–1657. doi:10.1086/ahr/98.5.1656 . Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  9. Rathbone, Richard (1993). "Reviews. Robin Law. The Slave Coast of West Africa 1550–1750: The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on an African Society". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. 56 (1): 196–198. doi:10.1017/S0041977X0000238X. JSTOR   620360. S2CID   162583469 . Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  10. Massing, Andreas (2011). "Analyses et comptes rendus. Law, Robin (ed.). — The English in West Africa". Cahiers d'Études africaines. 204: 1018–1022. doi: 10.4000/etudesafricaines.14323 . Retrieved 5 August 2022.
  11. Brunger, Scott (2006). "Reviewed Work: Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving "Port," 1727-1892 by Robin Law". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 39 (2): 313–315. JSTOR   40033870 . Retrieved 5 August 2022.