Education

Ph.D., University of California-Los Angeles, 1974

Fields of Interest

History of Sub-Saharan Africa; world history; labor and migration

Academic Profile

Professor Northrup teaches courses on the history of sub-Saharan Africa, Atlantic history, globalization, and world history. His research has dealt with pre-colonial Nigeria, early colonial Congo, the Atlantic slave trade, Asian and African indentured labor migration, and African encounters with Europe in the pre-colonial era. His work has included British, Belgian, and French colonialism in Africa. He is past president of the World History Association.

Representative Publications

• The Diary of Antera Duke: An Eighteenth-Century African Slave Trader (co-author, 2010)
• The Atlantic Slave Trade, compiler and editor, 3rd ed. (2010)
• Africa's Discovery of Europe, 1450-1850, 2nd ed. (2009)
• Crosscurrents in the Black Atlantic, 1770-1965: A Brief History with Documents (2007)
• The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History, 3rd ed. (co-author, 2004)
• Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism, 1834-1922 (1995)
• Beyond the Bend in the River: African Labor in Eastern Zaire, 1865-1940 (1988)
• Trade Without Rulers: Pre-Colonial Economic Development in South-Eastern Nigeria (1978)