Current History Magazine

Current History Magazine First published in 1914 to cover World War I, we are America's oldest magazine dedicated exclusively to world affairs. Nye Jr.

Current History is the oldest United States-based publication devoted exclusively to contemporary world affairs. The magazine was founded in 1914 by George Washington Ochs Oakes, brother of New York Times publisher Adolph Ochs, in order to provide detailed coverage of World War I. Current History was published by The New York Times Company from its founding until 1936. Since 1942 it has been owned

by members of the Redmond family; its current publisher is Daniel Mark Redmond. Current History, based in Philadelphia, maintains no institutional, political, or governmental affiliation. It is published monthly, from September through May. Seven issues each year are devoted to world regions (China and East Asia, Russia and Eurasia, the Middle East, Latin America, Europe, South Asia, and Africa); one issue covers current global trends; and one issue addresses a special theme such as climate change or global governance. The magazine has followed this practice of devoting each issue to a single region or theme since 1953. Each issue includes a chronology of major international events, and most contain a book review section and an article devoted to commentary. Contributors to Current History in the publication's early years included George Bernard Shaw, Winston Churchill, Charles Beard, Allan Nevins, and Henry Steele Commager. More recently, the journal has featured authors such as James Schlesinger, Francis Fukuyama, Jeffrey Sachs, Bruce Riedel, Leslie H. Gelb, Bruce Russett, Elizabeth Economy, Charles Kupchan, Ivo Daalder, Joseph Cirincione, Phebe Marr, Juan Cole, Bruce Gilley, and Marina Ottaway. Shortly after Current History began publishing in 1914, its editor, Ochs Oakes, decided that a magazine recording “history in the making” should maintain as regular contributors a group of historians and social scientists. He enlisted the help of a Harvard historian, Albert Bushnell Hart, in organizing the journal’s initial group of contributing editors. Current History’s board of contributing editors today includes Catherine Boone (London School of Economics); Bruce Cumings (University of Chicago); Uri Dadush (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace); Deborah Davis (Yale University); Larry Diamond (Stanford University); Michele Dunne (Carnegie Endowment); Barry Eichengreen (University of California, Berkeley); C. Christine Fair (Georgetown University); Sumit Ganguly (Indiana University); G. John Ikenberry (Princeton University); Michael T. Klare (Hampshire College); Joshua Kurlantzick (Council on Foreign Relations); Michael McFaul (Stanford University); Rajan Menon (Lehigh University); Augustus Richard Norton (Boston University); Joseph S. (Harvard University); Bruce Russett (Yale University); Michael Shifter (Inter-American Dialogue); Arturo Valenzuela (Georgetown University); and Jeffrey Wasserstrom (University of California, Irvine). The publication’s editor is Joshua Lustig.

A reminder to our readers: Current History does not publish June, July, or August issues. We will return to our regular ...
06/03/2025

A reminder to our readers: Current History does not publish June, July, or August issues. We will return to our regular monthly schedule with the September 2025 issue. Meanwhile, enjoy free access to all articles in our May issue—our annual Africa issue.

Current History | 124 | 862 | May 2025

Please enjoy free access (for a limited time) to all essays in our annual Africa issue, courtesy of University of Califo...
05/28/2025

Please enjoy free access (for a limited time) to all essays in our annual Africa issue, courtesy of University of California Press! Contributors include Michael Woldemariam, Faeeza Ballim, Emmanuel Mogende, Bamba Ndiaye, Ursula Read, Lily Kpobi, and Daniel E. Agbiboa.

Current History | 124 | 862 | May 2025

In our May issue, Current History editor Joshua Lustig reviews “The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fa...
05/27/2025

In our May issue, Current History editor Joshua Lustig reviews “The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon,” by Adam Shatz. Born in Martinique a century ago, Fanon identified with the ideals of the French Revolution as well as the independence struggles of colonized people. While serving as a doctor and propagandist in Algeria, he became “so devoted to the cause that he identified as an Algerian himself.” Fanon’s critics deride him as an apostle of violence, but he reasoned that “the overwhelming violence with which colonial rule was maintained in Algeria and elsewhere gave colonized peoples little choice but to resort to armed struggle.” Shatz does not overlook his subject’s shortcomings, but makes a strong case for Fanon’s continuing relevance through close attention to his writings.
https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article/124/862/197/209754/Return-to-the-Prophet-of-Revolt

Lustig’s review is available along with the rest of our annual Africa issue in print and on our website.
https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/issue/124/862

A new biography of iconic anti-colonial thinker Frantz Fanon emphasizes how his psychiatric practice informed his radical politics, and vice versa.

In our annual Africa issue, Daniel E. Agbiboa surveys the multiple crises that currently define life in Nigeria. Nigeria...
05/19/2025

In our annual Africa issue, Daniel E. Agbiboa surveys the multiple crises that currently define life in Nigeria. Nigerians must “scrape, hustle, and hope in a country that often feels like it is working against them,” writes Agbiboa, an associate professor of African and African American studies at Harvard University. Effective security, education, and health care are scarce public goods; those who can afford to hire private services or move abroad. Also increasingly unaffordable are staples such as food, running water, and fuel, “a cruel irony” for residents of the leading oil-producing nation in Africa. Disastrous floods in recent years have added an environmental component to the sense of systemic collapse. “Nigeria’s resilience is legendary,” but it is “not a substitute for justice.”
https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article/124/862/194/209753/May-Nigeria-Not-Happen-to-You

Agbiboa’s essay, “May Nigeria Not Happen to You,” is available along with the rest of our May issue in print and on our website.
https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/issue/124/862

Systemic state failures have left Nigerians struggling to survive a cost of living crisis, inaccessible health care, climate-related disasters, and rising insecurity.

In our May issue, Ursula Read and Lily Kpobi detail the multiple approaches to mental health care prevalent in Ghana, fr...
05/15/2025

In our May issue, Ursula Read and Lily Kpobi detail the multiple approaches to mental health care prevalent in Ghana, from medical facilities to traditional shrines and Pentecostal churches. The country has “continued to embrace a pluralistic system of health care, even as mental health services have expanded,” write Read, a lecturer in global public health at the University of Essex, and Kpobi, a research fellow with the Regional Institute for Population Studies at the University of Ghana. Defying expectations, medical professionals have not replaced traditional and faith healers, who remain popular despite the abusive methods of some practitioners. The limited resources of institutional authorities dampen their appeal, “driving families back to the promises of traditional and faith healers.”
https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article/124/862/187/209758/Pluralistic-Approaches-to-Mental-Health-Care-in

Read and Kpobi’s essay, “Pluralistic Approaches to Mental Health Care in Ghana,” is available along with the rest of our annual Africa issue in print and on our website.
https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/issue/124/862

In many African countries, traditional and faith healers are popular options for treating mental health problems. But there are serious concerns about healers engaging in potential human rights abuses. Collaboration between medical professionals and healers has long been proposed to address gaps in....

In our annual Africa issue, Bamba Ndiaye details how Senegalese youth at home and in diaspora have defended their countr...
05/12/2025

In our annual Africa issue, Bamba Ndiaye details how Senegalese youth at home and in diaspora have defended their country’s democracy. Ndiaye, an assistant professor of African studies at Emory University, writes that youth opposition to Senegal’s political establishment dates to the 1960s and has taken varied forms, including street protests, social movements, and music. By the turn of the twenty-first century, “hip-hop became a powerful oppositional force.” More recently, Senegalese abroad have turned to digital technologies to protest leaders at home, including former President Macky Sall, seen as abusing their authority and engaging in corrupt practices. As the 2024 election confirmed, “candidates championed by the diaspora consistently win.”
https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article/124/862/181/209759/Youth-Mobilization-and-Democracy-in-Senegal

Ndiaye’s essay, “Youth Mobilization and Democracy in Senegal,” is available along with the rest of our May issue in print and on our website.
https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/issue/124/862

When President Macky Sall took an authoritarian turn, young people mobilized once again to preserve Senegalese democracy. Youth political engagement has been influential in Senegal since the 1960s through a series of popular movements. More recently, hip-hop and digital activism became strong forces...

In memoriam: Joseph S. Nye, Jr., a long-serving Current History contributing editor. Enjoy free access to this essay he ...
05/09/2025

In memoriam: Joseph S. Nye, Jr., a long-serving Current History contributing editor. Enjoy free access to this essay he contributed to the journal, now timelier than ever:

The rise of digital networks is diffusing power to new players. Fourth in a series on soft power.

In our May issue, Emmanuel Mogende argues that the nature conservation regime in Botswana has often failed to serve the ...
05/08/2025

In our May issue, Emmanuel Mogende argues that the nature conservation regime in Botswana has often failed to serve the nation’s people, especially in rural areas. The country has received praise for its ”growing network of protected areas, a greener model of wildlife tourism, and a militarized (fortress conservation) approach to defending nature,” writes Mogende, a senior lecturer in environmental and resource politics at the University of Botswana. But this approach compromises Botswana’s reputation as a model democracy. The creation of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve involved the unconstitutional displacement of the indigenous San people, who were seen as “having no place in modern-day democratic Botswana.” After the country’s longtime ruling party lost power in the 2024 election, the new president, Duma Boko, “vowed to restore the dignity and the rights of the San.” But the economic importance of the tourism sector raises doubts about the prospects for major changes in conservation policy.
https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article/124/862/175/209752/Conservation-Politics-in-Botswana-s-Green-State

Mogende’s essay, “Conservation Politics in Botswana’s ‘Green State’,” is available along with the rest of our annual Africa issue in print and on our website.
https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/issue/124/862

Nature conservation has been key to Botswana’s emergence as a democratic and economic model among African states. Under the stewardship of the Botswana Democratic Party, the country was internationally acclaimed as a conservation success story. Much of this success was linked to former President I...

In our annual Africa issue, Faeeza Ballim traces the political entanglements of South Africa’s state-owned electricity s...
05/05/2025

In our annual Africa issue, Faeeza Ballim traces the political entanglements of South Africa’s state-owned electricity supplier, Eskom. The company and the government “are bound together in an inescapable relationship of conflict and compromise,” writes Ballim, an associate professor of history at the University of Johannesburg. Created in 1923, Eskom has played a crucial role in national development plans ever since. When apartheid policies intensified in the 1960s and South Africa faced international isolation, political elites sought to increase Eskom’s capacity. After South Africa democratized in 1994, Eskom remained central to state aims under the new dominant party, the African National Congress, running up heavy debts. In the past few years, the company’s role in a “state capture” scandal and its chronic power cuts paralleled the ANC’s declining fortunes, as the party was forced into a coalition government after losing its parliamentary majority in the 2024 elections.
https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article/124/862/169/209757/The-Politics-of-Electricity-in-South-Africa

Ballim’s essay, “The Politics of Electricity in South Africa,” is available along with the rest of our May issue in print and on our website.
https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/issue/124/862

Since 2007, South Africa has struggled with a worsening shortage of electricity. By the 2020s, it appeared that there was no end in sight to “load shedding,” or scheduled periods of electricity outages. This article considers the causes of South Africa’s electricity supply crisis as well as su...

In our May issue, enjoy free access (for a limited time) to an essay by Michael Woldemariam on the parallel factors that...
05/01/2025

In our May issue, enjoy free access (for a limited time) to an essay by Michael Woldemariam on the parallel factors that led democratic transitions in Ethiopia and Sudan to derail into civil wars. “Between 2018 and 2019, the Horn of Africa’s two largest states witnessed the fall of entrenched autocratic orders,” writes Woldemariam, an associate professor in the School of Public Policy and a senior fellow with the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. But since then, both countries have succumbed to destructive conflicts fueled by domestic rivalries and external powers. In both cases, “the United States and African multilateral organizations . . . failed to provide a counterbalance to the destabilizing interventions of regional authoritarians.”
https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article/124/862/163/209756/The-Tragedy-of-Transition-in-Ethiopia-and-Sudan

Woldemariam’s essay, “The Tragedy of Transition in Ethiopia and Sudan,” is available along with the rest of our annual Africa issue in print and on our website.
https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/issue/124/862

The collapse of the 2018–19 political transitions in Ethiopia and Sudan was one of the great African tragedies of the past decade. Three main factors caused these promising democratic openings to devolve into violence and resurgent authoritarianism. Both transitions suffered from similar structura...

Current History’s May 2025 issue, the annual Africa issue, is now available in print and on our website at https://onlin...
04/30/2025

Current History’s May 2025 issue, the annual Africa issue, is now available in print and on our website at https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/issue/124/862

The issue features the following essays:

The Tragedy of Transition in Ethiopia and Sudan
Michael Woldemariam (University of Maryland, College Park)
After hopes of democratization rose in two of the Horn of Africa’s largest countries, internal rivalries derailed power sharing and plunged both into civil wars.

The Politics of Electricity in South Africa
Faeeza Ballim (University of Johannesburg)
Critics saw the end of chronic blackouts as a cynical ploy to boost the sagging electoral fortunes of the ruling party. But the state energy company has long been intertwined with national aims.

Conservation Politics in Botswana’s ‘Green State’
Emmanuel Mogende (University of Botswana)
An increasingly centralized, militarized approach to the preservation of nature and cultivation of a tourism industry has trampled on the rights of Indigenous communities.

Youth Mobilization and Democracy in Senegal
Bamba Ndiaye (Emory University)
In the face of a repressive government, digital activism in the diaspora and creative resistance at home showed that Senegalese youth remain the guardians of democracy.

Pluralistic Approaches to Mental Health Care in Ghana
Ursula Read (University of Essex) and Lily Kpobi (University of Ghana)
Treatments rooted in modern psychiatry, traditional faith healing, and churches coexist in uneasy collaborations as patients and families seek accessible cures.

PERSPECTIVE
May Nigeria Not Happen to You
Daniel E. Agbiboa (Harvard University)
Multiple systemic failures have created widespread desperation, and many Nigerians have adopted a grim slogan as a demand for change.

BOOKS
Return to the Prophet of Revolt
Joshua Lustig (Current History)
A new study of an iconic anti-colonial thinker probes the ambiguities and ironies of his self-transformation into an African revolutionary—and of his many afterlives.

Current History | 124 | 862 | May 2025

In our April issue, Nile Green reviews “Disrupted City: Walking the Pathways of Memory and History in Lahore,” by Manan ...
04/22/2025

In our April issue, Nile Green reviews “Disrupted City: Walking the Pathways of Memory and History in Lahore,” by Manan Ahmed Asif. “This is a book that switches between the city as written and observed, as remembered and forgotten,” writes Green, a professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles. Lahore has been a cultural crossroads and contested space for centuries, and that is reflected both in its physical geography and in historical texts. But since Partition, the city’s pluralistic past has been the subject of various forms of “erasure” by the Pakistani state. This erasure “was not simply a matter of state-sponsored history taught through school and college curricula, museums, and films” but also enacted in physical settings: street names in multiple scripts have been replaced by “monolingual replacements in Urdu.”
https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article/124/861/157/209537/Walking-the-Past-in-Pakistan

Green’s review, “Walking the Past in Pakistan,” is available along with the rest of our annual South Asia issue in print and on our website.
https://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/issue/124/861

A historian searches Lahore on foot for traces of a pluralistic past, obscured by monolithic official histories of the modern nation.

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