Albert Kwadwo Adu Boahen (May 24, 1932 – May 24, 2006) was a Ghanaian academic, historian, and politician. He was an academic at the University of Ghana from 1959 to 1990, since 1971 as a professor. As a politician, he notably was a candidate in the 1992 Ghanaian presidential election, representing the main opposition New Patriotic Party.
Boahen was born in Oseim to Presbyterian parents, and had his ancestral roots in Juaben in the Ashanti Region. He attended religious schools between 1938 and 1947. He then spent three years at the Mfantsipim School before enrolling in history studies at the University College of the Gold Coast in Legon. He graduated in 1956. In 1959 he received a Ph.D in African history from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, as the first Ghanaian.
He was employed at the University of Ghana in 1959, and was a professor from 1971 to his retirement in 1990. He chaired the Department of History there from 1967 to 1975, as the first African to do so, and was a dean from 1973 to 1975. He also served on the editorial board of The Journal of African History published by Cambridge University Press,and was a visiting scholar at such institutions as the Australian National University in 1969, Columbia University in 1970 and the State University of New York in 1990 and 1991. Between 1993 and 1999, he also worked in the UNESCO committee that published the eight-volume work General History of Africa.
