Vol. 11 No. 1 (2025): History and Development. Essays dedicated to Professors Thierno Mouctar Bah and Eldridge Mohammadou

Essays originally published in Adama, Hamadou (éd.), 2016, Traditions historiques et développement, Mélanges offerts aux Professeurs Thierno Mouctar Bah et Eldridge Mohammadou (Annales de la FALSH, Numéro spécial Volume XV), Université de Ngaoundéré, Cameroun. Republished with the kind permission of the Université de Ngaoundéré.

The essays presented to Professors Thierno Mouctar Bah and Mohammadou Eldridge focus on two main areas of research that reflect the scientific careers of these two internationally recognised icons of knowledge.

The first area highlights the scientific career of Professor Eldridge Mohammadou, who is known to have devoted his entire life to collecting, compiling and recording the historical traditions of the peoples of northern and central Cameroon. The contributions focus on Arabic and Ajami manuscript sources, the ways in which peoples were brought into dependency, chronology, health, religion, migration and their impact on linguistics, mental structures and heritage. All of them revisit, inform and update the lines of research pioneered by Eldridge Mohammadou, each bringing its own perspective, relevance and scholarship.

The second strand follows the scientific journey of Professor Thierno Mouctar, who, in the early 1970s, set about establishing a history school focused on development at the University of Yaoundé. The works included in this section address themes such as environmental history, state-building, biodiversity education, identity issues, relations with the media, colonial legacies and the arts of speech. They emphasise the African roots of thought and openness to otherness with a view to rethinking development, its objectives and its usefulness.

The authors of the twenty-eight contributions to this special issue thus wish to pay humble tribute to these eminent pioneering researchers, passionate about research and with unique destinies.