Toby Green is a British historian of inequality who is 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 Fontes Historiae Africanae Committee of the British Academy, and has written extensively about African early modern history and colonial African slavery, mainly focussed on slavery in the Portuguese colonies.

He has also written on the Spanish Inquisition.^[1] Green disagrees with the notion of a Black Legend of the Spanish Inquisition and often quotes sixteenth-century sources regarding the institution's abuse of power in Latin America, and is often cited regarding this subject. He has other publications regarding the issues of religious prosecution and oppression in Africa and other European colonies. His interests are slavery in the Atlantic and cultural and economic links between America and Africa.^[2]

His book A Fistful of Shells won the 2019 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding.^[3] It was a finalist for the 2019 LA Times Book prize,^[4] and was shortlisted for the 2019 Cundill History Prize^[5] and 2020 Wolfson History Prize.^[6]

Work on the Covid-19 pandemic

Green worked widely on the Covid-19 pandemic, addressing the impacts through the lens of inequality. He wrote two editions of a book, The Covid Consensus,^[7] as well as newspaper articles. He also broadcast a series of podcast interviews with academics from Africa and Latin America for Collateral Global.^[8] Green's main concern was the impact of Covid lockdowns on impoverished people around the world. His work was widely discussed, including in the Guardian,^[9] Al-Ahram,^[10] El Pais,^[11] and Le Monde.^[12]

Views on the Spanish Inquisition

Green addresses the Spanish Inquisition mainly through Hispano-American sources. He notes that the great unchecked power given to inquisitors meant that they were "widely seen as above the law"^[13] and sometimes had motives for imprisoning and sometimes executing alleged offenders other than for the purpose of punishing religious nonconformity, mainly in Iberoamerica.^[13][14][15]

Publications

Further reading

A Fistful of Shells by Toby Green review – the west African slave trade - The Guardian

What heart of darkness? Busting myths about West African history - The Telegraph

Interview with Toby Green in QG Media - QG Media

Interview with Toby Green in La Presse du Soir - La Presse du Soir

Interview with Toby Green - Times Higher Education

Three Years on there is a New Generation of Lockdown Sceptics - The Guardian

We Must Change the Way we Understand our History - Big Issue North

References