Basil Risbridger Davidson MC was a British historian and Africanist knowledgeable on the subject of Portuguese Africa prior to the 1974 Carnation Revolution. He wrote several books on the current situation of Africa. Colonialism and the rise of African emancipation movements were central themes of his work, he was an Honorary Fellow of the School of African Studies in London. Born in Bristol, Davidson was a reporter until 1939 for the London Economist in Paris, France. From December 1939, he was a Secret Intelligence Service / MI-6 D Section officer sent to Budapest to establish a news service as cover. In April 1941, with the Nazi invasion, he fled to Yugoslavia. In May, he was captured by Italian forces and was released as part of a prisoner exchange. From late 1942 to mid-1943, he was chief of the Special Operations Executive Yugoslav Section in Cairo, where he was James Klugmann's supervisor, he parachuted into Bosnia on 16 August 1943, spent the following months serving as a liaison with the Partisans, as he would describe in his 1946 book, Partisan Picture.

Davidson moved east into the Fruška Gora. He was nearly killed several times. SOE higher-ups sent him to Hungary to try to organize a rebel movement there, but Davidson found that the conditions weren't ripe and crossed back over the Danube into the Fruska Gora; the Germans encircled the Fruška Gora in June 1944 in a last attempt to liquidate the Partisans there, but Davidson and the others made a narrow escape. After the Soviets moved into Yugoslavia, Davidson was airlifted out. Davidson had enormous appreciation for the Tito. From January 1945 Davidson was liaison officer with partisans in Genoa, Italy, he was present for the surrender of the German forces in Genoa on 26/27 April to these same partisans known as the CLN. After the war, he was Paris correspondent for The Times, Daily Herald, New Statesman and the Daily Mirror. According to his friend historian Eric Hobsbawm, Davidson's career took "a sharp turn for the worse with the Cold War. After leaving the Times he was, in effect, edged out of the New Statesman and Nation at its height as the organ of the respectable left, as a fellow traveller."

He turned his attention to Africa, from 1951, he became a well-known authority on African history, an unfashionable subject in the 1950s. His writings emphasised the pre-colonial achievements of Africans, the disastrous effects of the Atlantic slave trade, the further damage inflicted on Africa by European colonialism and the baleful effects of the nation state in Africa. Davidson died on 9 July 2010, aged 95. Davidson's book The Lost Cities of Africa won him the 1960 Anisfield-Wolf Award, for the best book that dealt with racial problems in creative literature, he was the recipient of the 1970 Haile Selassie I Prize Trust award for his works on African history. The prize of a Gold Medal and Eth $40,000 was presented to him at a ceremony in Addis Ababa by Emperor Haile Selassie on 2 November 1970. In 1976, he won the Medalha Amílcar Cabral, he received honorary degrees from the Open University of Great Britain in 1980, the University of Edinburgh in 1981. For his film series Africa, he won the Gold Award, from the International Film and Television Festival of New York in 1984.

In 2002 he was decorated by the Portuguese president Jorge Sampaio as Grande Oficial da Ordem do Infante D. Henrique. Partisan Picture. Bedford: Bedford Books, 1946 African Awakening. London: Cape, 1955 Black Mother: The Years of the African Slave Trade. Boston: Little Brown, 1961. African Slave Trade: Precolonial History 1450-1850. Boston: Atlantic-Little Brown, 1961; the African Past: Chronicles from Antiquity to Modern Times. London: Longmans, 1964 Africa: History of a Continent London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1966 Africa in History. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968. ISBN 0297764055 The Africans: An Entry to Cultural History. Boston, Mass: Little, Brown, 1969 The African Genius. Boston, Mass: Little, Brown, 1969. ISBN 085255799X Special Operations Europe: Scenes from the anti-Nazi war. London: Gollancz, 1980. ISBN 0575028203 Let Freedom Come: Africa in Modern History, 1978 The Black Man's Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State, 1992 A History of West Africa 1000-1800, Longman, 1977 Lost Cities of Africa, Little Brown, 1959 African Kingdoms.

Time-Life International N V, 1966 African Civilization Revisited: From Antiquity to Modern Times, 1995 Old Africa Rediscovered, Gollancz, 1959 The Africans, Prentice Hall, 1969 The Liberation of Guine, Penguin, 1969 In the Eye of the Storm: Angola's people, 1974 Africa in Modern History, 1978 Golden Horn, Cape, 1952 Black Star: A View of the Life and Times of Kwame Nkrumah, 1973 West Africa Before the Colonial Era, Longman, 1998 Scenes From The Anti-Nazi War, Monthly Review Press Biographical information Africa: A Voyage of Discovery with Basil Davidson Basil Davidson: PARTISAN PICTURE Imperial War Museum Interview

Bob Both is an American recording engineer and record producer, best known for his work with James Brown in the 1970s. Both was born in the son of a carpenter. Inspired by The Beatles, he learned to play the guitar at age 11 and started his first band in the 8th grade, he started writing songs and making simple recordings on a home tape recorder by age 14. Throughout high school Both continued playing in bands; when he graduated from high school he attended The Ridgewood School of Art and studied to become a commercial artist. In his second year of school his strong interest in music led him to quit art school and search for a job in the music business. At age 19, armed with nothing little more than a letter of recommendation from one of his art teachers, he landed a job as A&R assistant to Peter K. Seigel at Polydor Records, NYC. There Both learned the basics of record production from Seigel and the fundamentals of record mastering from Bob Ludwig, a mastering engineer at Sterling Sound, he began to develop his engineering skills producing mixes for James Brown.

In 1972, he became A&R director and production supervisor. He worked on 11 of Brown's albums including the number one hits "Get on the Good Foot", "The Payback", "My Thang" and "Doing It to Death" with Fred Wesley & the J. B.s. Both recorded records for artists signed to Brown's production company including Hank Ballard, Maceo Parker, Lyn Collins, Bobby Byrd, Vicki Anderson and others. Both opened his own studio, Twain Recording, in New Jersey, he has done recordings for thousands of bands in the New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas such as Stephanie White & The Philth Harmonic, The Antics], The Insomniacs, The Disconnects, Crazy & The Brains, Dan Sheehan Conspiracy and many others.. Both has had years of experience recording punk rock/hardcore bands. New Jersey punk/hardcore producer Mark "The Mutha" Chesley recorded the bulk of Mutha Records catalog at Twain Recording including The Worst, Chronic Sick, Secret Syde, Youth in Asia, Lost in Aggression, Fatal Rage and many more. Producer Marty Munsch of Punk Rock Records has recorded many notable projects with Bob, including U.

S. Chaos, The Vote, The New York Rel-X, Broken Heroes, The Flare Ups, The Stun Gunz, Terabithia, to name just a few. Both worked with Harry Weinger of Polygram Records catalog development on the re-issue of many of James Browns classic seventies albums on CD throughout the 1990s. In 1993 Both began teaching audio production courses at Ramapo College of NJ. In 1995 he started teaching audio courses at William Paterson University, NJ. Both recorded the drumming technique DVD Soul of the Funky Drummers with Clyde Stubblefield and Jabo Starks in 1999 and recorded the Accelerate Your Playing DVD series for The Berklee Press in 2000. 2007 saw Bob once again reuniting with Fred Wesley to record "Funk For Your Ass" for Columbia Music. Both's work is cited in several books including The Billboard Book of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits and Hit Me, Fred Wesley's biography. Both has written articles on recording techniques for magazines including EQ, REP, Pro Music and others, he has received RIAA gold record awards for several of his James Brown recordings and is listed in The Marquis Who's Who in Entertainment.

Both continues to operate Twain Recording and producing records in rock, R&B, alternative and a variety of other musical styles. He performs several times a month playing guitar in a classic rock band just for the fun of making music. Video Interview with Bob Both https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1EIUoJl710 http://www.theaquarian.com/2010/12/22/from-the-console-over-the-mountain/ http://www.allmusic.com/artist/bob-both-mn0000760616/credits https://soundbetter.com/profiles/9140-bob-both