The written history of Africa may be divided into two main schools of thought: "Before Basil Davidson" and "After Basil Davidson".

For, until Basil Davidson, who has died at the age of 95, published his Old Africa Rediscoveredin 1959, published African history was mostly about when Europeans first came to Africa, what they did, and the "benign" changes they wrought in the lives of the "savage" natives.

As a Ghanaian, all the history I left school with was from a book entitled A Short History of The Gold Coast - the first edition of which was published in the '30s. Written by Briton WEF Ward, it could have been meant specifically to confirm the claim, made in 1963 by British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper (author of The Last Days of Hitler), that "perhaps in the future, there will be some African history to teach. But at present there is none."

Davidson arrived on the scene in the '50s and, in a string of 30 books, tore up the script that preached prejudice against Africa.

Because he was originally a journalist, Davidson was able to tell his stories in an easy style that made his well-researched books accessible to the public. He told his readers about unknown African empires, such as Ghana, Mali, Songhai, in West Africa; Zulu, Xhosa and Ndebele in South Africa, and BaKongo in central Africa. The European invaders didn't plant themselves in empty, barbarous lands, he revealed.

Because he was not an African, Davidson could enthuse about the wealth and organisational capabilities that marked past African societies, without fearing the charge that he was boasting or romanticising a past that did not exist.

And because Davidson had been a lieutenant-colonel in Britain's Special Operations Executive, fighting in Yugoslavia during World War 2, his facts were scrupulously researched and no one could accuse him of being a lightweight.

It was through him that I learnt how the first African slaves were caught by Portuguese naval marauders.

He brilliantly illustrated how that single capture eventually grew into the horrendous - and lucrative - trade in which at least 20 million Africans were kidnapped and shipped as slaves to North and South America and the Caribbean.

Davidson was not cut out to be a scholar at all.

Born in Bristol on November 9 1914, he dreamt of being a writer. But he left school at the age of 16 and his first job was anything but glamorous: writing about bananas for an advertising firm.

His big break came in 1931 when he got a job with The Economist magazine in London. The magazine posted him to Paris, and his work there took him all over Europe. He used the opportunity to put his facility for learning languages to good use.

So when he joined the British army, at the outbreak of the war, his experiences and skills made him ideal material for the SOE. He was posted to Budapest, Hungary, but he was caught and detained by the Italian army. Released in a prisoner swap, he went to Yugoslavia, where he achieved great success working with anti-Hitler partisans under the leadership of Marshal Josip Broz Tito.

Davidson's adventurism was recognised by his being awarded the Military Cross. However, because he would not give up his friendship with the communists at whose side he had fought against Hitler, the British authorities regarded him as a dangerous "fellow traveller" and, after the war, he was given the cold shoulder.

Undeterred, Davidson worked abroad for several London newspapers. He also started writing seriously about Africa. By 1951, he had become a well-known authority on African history. In 1984, his charm and photogenic appearance were harnessed by TV's Channel 4 in an award-winning series on the socio-political history of Africa.

Davidson also popularised the struggle waged by the late Amilcar Cabral, the Guinea-Bissau guerrilla leader whose PAIGC achieved the first military successes against Portuguese rule in Africa.

It was also through Davidson's writings that Western societies learnt how the people of Angola were fighting against the Portuguese.

On hearing of his death, Angola's ruling MPLA issued a statement confirming that "Basil Davidson was the first Western journalist to visit the MPLA-liberated areas in Angola".

He was also a pioneering activist of the anti-apartheid struggle in Britain.

Davidson, who died on July 9, is survived by his wife, Marion, and three sons.