ABSTRACT
In the early 1960s it was possible to get a reputation in African history not for what one had done, but for what one was trying to do. 1 Nehemia Levtzion arrived in Ghana in September 1963, about four months after I arrived in Senegal; both of us were about to begin PhD research. He was somewhat better prepared for doctoral research because he knew Arabic and had already done research on the history of Islam. He also benefited from the collection of Arabic and Hausa documents that Ivor Wilks had built for the Institute of African Studies (University of Ghana). Levtzion had trained at the School of Oriental African Studies, University of London (UK), then recognized as the most important training institution for would-be Africanists. He also knew what he wanted to do. I had backed into African history when I became dissatisfied with a program in European history. When I returned from Senegal, I began to hear stories about a remarkable young Israeli who was wandering around northern Ghana looking for histories, both oral and written.
