Roland Anthony Oliver FBA (30 March 1923 – 9 February 2014) was an Indian-born English academic and Emeritus Professor of African history at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

. Throughout a long career he was an eminent researcher, writer, teacher, administrator and organiser, who had a profound effect on the development of African Studies in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

Biography

Oliver was born in

Srinagar Srinagar (; ) is a city in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir in the disputed Kashmir region.The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of Kashmir and a mention of the Kashmir dispute is supported by the tertiary ...

Kashmir Kashmir ( or ) is the Northwestern Indian subcontinent, northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term ''Kashmir'' denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir P ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

in 1923. Following his undergraduate and doctoral studies at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

between 1941 and 1948, Roland Oliver joined the staff of the

School of Oriental and African Studies The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London; ) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury area ...

(SOAS) at the

, where he was successively Lecturer, Reader and Professor until his retirement in 1986. His appointment as a lecturer in African history marked the beginnings of the contemporary academic field of African history. The African History Seminar that he founded and chaired at the

(SOAS) became the most important venue for the advancement of the academic discipline of African history anywhere in the world, and has profoundly influenced all subsequent scholarship on the subject. He travelled extensively throughout

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

in 1949-50 and 1957–58 and visited the continent almost every year since then. In 1953, 1957 and 1961 he organised international conferences on African history and archaeology, which did much to establish the subject as an academic discipline. He was a founding editor, with

John Fage John Donnelly Fage (3 June 1921–6 August 2002) was a British historian who was among the first academics to specialise in African history, especially of the History of Africa#Medieval and Early Modern (6th to 18th centuries), pre-colonia ...

, in 1960 of the ''Journal of African History'' and, again with John Fage, in 1960 of the '' Cambridge History of Africa'' which appeared in eight volumes between 1975 and 1986. In 1963, he carried out a survey of 250 working Africanist academics in the

and founded the

African Studies Association of the UK The African Studies Association of the United Kingdom (ASAUK) formed in 1963 "to advance African studies, particularly in the United Kingdom, by providing facilities for the interchange of information and ideas and the co-ordination of activities ...

(ASAUK) itself. He became its fourth President in 1966–67. Oliver was visiting professor at the University of Brussels (1961),

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

(1962), and

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

(1967). From 1979 to 1993 he was president of the British Institute in Eastern Africa. The ''Cambridge History of Africa'', and his influential ''Oxford History of East Africa'', were produced in a decade between the late 1970s and late 1980s. These histories recognised and celebrated the long, rich history of Africa, which for the first half of the 20th century was previously thought by historians to have only a history "created" by white travellers, administrators and settlers. In 2004, Oliver was awarded the Distinguished Africanist Award of the African Studies Association of the UK (ASAUK) and in 1993 he was elected a Fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...

. He died on 9 February 2014 at the age of 90 in Frilsham, Berkshire, England.

Books

*''The Missionary Factor in East Africa'', 1952. *''Sir Harry Johnston and the Scramble for Africa'', 1957. *''A Short History of Africa'' (with

), 1962, 6th edition 1988. *''Africa since 1800'' (with Anthony Atmore) 1967. *''Africa in the Iron Age'' (with

Brian Fagan Brian Murray Fagan (born 1 August 1936) is a British author of popular archaeology books and a professor emeritus of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Biography Fagan was born in England where he received his childho ...

) 1975. *''The African Middle Ages'' (with Anthony Atmore) 1981. *''The African Experience: From Olduvai Gorge to the 21st Century'', 1991, Revised 1999. *''In the Realms of Gold: Pioneering in African History'', 1997.

References

External links

http://asauk.net/awards/africanist.shtmlhttp://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/Westview/author_detail.jsp?id=287392http://www.africana.co.uk/collections/col_oliv.shtml
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oliver, Roland 1923 births 2014 deaths Historians of Africa English Africanists Indian Africanists Academics of SOAS University of London Fellows of the British Academy Northwestern University faculty Harvard University staff British expatriates in the United States Presidents of the African Studies Association of the United Kingdom