Stephen Ellis

We are very sad to report that Stephen Ellis passed away on July 29, 2015. Read the In Memoriam on our website.

Stephen Ellis was a historian with a broad range of interests in contemporary history and politics. In his most recent book, This Present Darkness: A History of Nigerian Organised Crime (posthumously published in April 2016), Ellis investigates how Nigeria became a breeding ground for illicit trade, large-scale corruption and organised crime. His book 'External Mission: The ANC in Exile 1960-1990' was awarded the Recht Malan Prize for Non-Fiction in South Africa. It's a meticulous study of the little-known history of the ANC's long period of exile. In addition to his work at the ASC, Stephen Ellis was the Desmond Tutu Professor of Youth, Sport and Reconciliation at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the VU University, Amsterdam. He was a member of various editorial boards, including that of the journal African Affairs, of which he was a former editor.