David Anderson is Professor of African Politics and Fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford, having spent the previous three years as a Research Fellow in African Studies, based at St Antony's College. His Oxford connections began in 2002 when he was elected to the Evans-Pritchard Visiting Lectureship at All Souls. He first studied History at the University of Sussex, going on to begin doctoral studies at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1978, after which he took up a Research Fellowship at New Hall, Cambridge. In 1984 he was appointed Lecturer in Imperial & Commonwealth History at Birkbeck College, University of London, and then in 1990 Senior Lecturer in African History, and Director of the Centre for African Studies in the University of London (1997–2001). His research interests have remained focused upon eastern and central Africa, but his published work has ranged across a wide variety of topics, from histories of environmental change to current analysis of political violence. David Anderson is co-editor of the Journal of Eastern African Studies.