Michael Crowder was born in London on 9 June 1934 and educated at Mill Hill School. During his national service he was seconded to the Nigeria Regiment (1953-1954). He gained a 1st class honours degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) at Hertford College, Oxford University in 1957. He returned to Lagos to become first Editor of Nigeria Magazine , 1959-1962, and then Secretary at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ibadan. In 1964-1965 he was Visiting Lecturer in African History at the University of California, Berkeley, and in 1965-1967 was Director of the Institute of African Studies at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone. From 1968 to 1978 he was based in Nigeria again, first as Research Professor and Director of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ife, then from 1971 as Professor of History at the Ahmadu Bello University (also becoming Director of its Centre for Nigerian Cultural Studies, 1972-1975) and finally as Research Professor in History at the Centre for Cultural Studies at the University of Lagos, 1975-1978. He returned to London in 1979 to become editor of the British magazine History Today and is credited with making a significant contribution to the survival and then success of the magazine as it now is. He remained a Consultant Editor up to his death. He returned to the academic world as Visiting Fellow at the Centre for International Studies at the LSE, 1981-82, and then as Professor of History at the University of Botswana, 1982-85. From 1985 until his death he was Joint Editor of the Journal of African History . In 1986 he became Visiting Professor in Black Studies at Amherst College, Massachusetts, USA and Honorary Professorial Fellow and General Editor of the British Documents on the End of Empire Project at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (ICS). His death on 14 August 1988 was marked by obituaries in the four major daily London newspapers and in many academic journals. For a bibliography [incomplete] of Crowder's works, see J.F. Ade Ajayi & John D.Y. Peel (eds.), People and Empires in African History: Essays in Memory of Michael Crowder (London, Longman 1992) pp.x-xiv. His major publications include: The Story of Nigeria (1962, 4ed. 1977); West Africa under Colonial Rule (London, Hutchinson 1968); jt.ed., The History of West Africa (London, Longman 2 vols 1971-74, 2 ed. 1985-87); West African Resistance (London, Hutchinson 1971); Nigeria: an Introduction to its History (London, Longman 1979); ed. Cambridge History of Africa , vol. VIII (CUP 1984); 'I want to be taught how to govern, not to be taught how to be governed': Tshekedi Khama and the opposition to the British administration in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1926-30 (University of Malawi 1984); The Flogging of Phinehas McIntosh: a tale of colonial folly and injustice - Bechuanaland, 1933 (New Haven, Yale University Press 1988); with N. Parsons, eds., Monarch of All I Survey: Bechuanaland Diaries, 1929-37 by Sir Charles Rey (Gaborone and New York 1988).
From the guide to the CROWDER, Michael (1934-1988), 1958-1988 (mainly 1982-1985), (Institute of Commonwealth Studies)
