Michal Tymowski, born in 1941, is now a retired professor from the University of Warsaw. He was professor at the Université Paris IV-Sorbonne (1989-1993). He has published among others The Origins and Structures of Political Organizations in Pre-Colonial Black Africa (Mellen, 2009).

In Europeans and Africans Michal Tymowski analyses the cultural and organizational aspects of contacts of both sides on the West African coast in the 15th and early 16th centuries, and the creation of the image of 'other' - African for Europeans, and European for Africans.