Toby Green and Benedetta Rossi (Eds.): Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects of the West African Past: Essays in Honour of Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias

Abstract

Paulo de Moraes Farias is a unique scholar who has bridged traditional disciplinary divides in the study of West African history. Born in Bahia, he was forced to flee Brazil after the 1964 coup and taught in Ghana, Senegal, and Nigeria before settling at the University of Birmingham, where he has spent most of his academic career. His work has targeted a wide range of themes, from epigraphic sources to the Timbuktu tarikhs and oral traditions, always through his unique critical gaze, defying inherited “truths” and emphasizing the importance of each source’s context of production (and reproduction). In 2015, a conference was held in Birmingham to celebrate Moraes Farias’ contribution to West African historiography. This symposium, entitled “Landscapes, sources and intellectual projects in African history: rethinking historical evidence and its interpretation,” brought together archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists to reflect on the key themes in Moraes Farias’ career. These reflections have now been published as an edited volume, which is as diverse and interesting as Moraes Farias’ work itself.