Robin Law

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. 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). Law received the Distinguished Africanist award of the African Studies Association of the UK for 2010.

Law published many scholarly books and research articles on Africa, including:

• The Oyo Empire, c. 1600–c. 1836: A West African Imperialism in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977. Oxford Studies in African Affairs.
• The horse in West African history : the role of the horse in the societies of pre-colonial West Africa, Oxford: Oxford University Press for the International Africa Institute, 1980. New edition London : Routledge, 2020.
• The slave coast of West Africa, 1550-1750 : the impact of the Atlantic slave trade on an African society, Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1991, 2002.
• The English in West Africa, 1685-1688 : the local correspondence of the Royal African Company of England, 1681-1699, by Law, Robin, Ed., Oxford : Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press,Part 1 and 2 (1681-1688); Part 1: 1997, Part 2: 2001, Part 3 (1691-1699): 2007. Fontes historiae Africanae, new series 5.
• Ouidah : The Social History of a West African Slaving Port 1727-1892, Athens: Ohio, Ohio University Press, 2004. Suffolk : Boydell & Brewer, 2017.
• Dahomey and the ending of the trans-Atlantic slave trade : the journals and correspondence of Vice-Consul Louis Fraser, 1851-1852. Oxford : Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 2012. Series: Fontes historiae Africanae, new series 10.
• Benin, in Encyclopedia Britannica.