The transition from the highly structured, cooperative era of post–Cold War arms control to the fragmented and unpredictable nuclear landscape of 2026 is examined through a blend of personal memoir an...

"We want to continue to engage with scholars, and push them outside their comfort zones to write for more general audiences with writing that delights and informs."

A new history uses records of a local businesswoman’s brush with the Inquisition as a window into everyday life in an Atlantic port town and slave-trading hub under Portuguese colonial rule.

Since 2020, the Sahel region has emerged as the global epicenter of coups d’état and terrorism. This article surveys why coups in recent years have been concentrated in a narrow belt running from Guin...

Angola and Mozambique both celebrated fifty years of independence in 2025. The politics of each country have been marked by a fractious past. Both endured internal conflict until the 1990s, as social ...

This article examines the complex dynamics of medical discrimination and anti-LGBTIQ exclusion in Cameroon. It uses Michel Foucault’s concept of biopolitics and Achille Mbembe’s idea of necropolitics ...

President Yoweri Museveni, in power for four decades, has overseen a steady drift toward autocracy in Uganda. Elections have been held regularly since 1996, yet they have led not to democratization bu...

The 2025 youth uprising in Madagascar was a Gen Z–led movement sparked by chronic infrastructure failures and deepening economic precarity. Young Malagasy mobilized digital culture and global symbols ...

Despite elections being held across the continent, coup leaders and other foes of liberal democracy have seized on disenchantment with poor governance and economic frustrations to renew old debates ab...

A new book illuminates the lasting consequences of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s imposition of a 21-month state of emergency in the mid-1970s, running roughshod over democratic institutions an...

Youth protests that have toppled governments and brought life to a standstill in countries in South Asia and beyond are united not only by visible symbols, notably a Jolly Roger flag from a Japanese a...

In September 2025, Nepal was shaken by youth protests against corruption and nepotism, state violence that left at least 76 people dead, and widespread destruction of infrastructure. The government wa...

The mass deportation of Afghan refugees and mobile people from Pakistan to Afghanistan is reshaping trade networks and routes, dividing families, and disrupting local economies and identities. For cen...

China has become a visible actor in Myanmar’s ongoing conflict, but its engagement is defined by selectivity rather than transformation. Since late 2023, Beijing has brokered borderland ceasefires and...

The Hindu nationalist movement’s ideological vision has been systematically pursued through the use of state-sanctioned violence. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, thi...

Collective rage amplified by massive social media participation spilled over into large-scale youth-led protests that recently toppled governments in Bangladesh and Nepal, shaping a new kind of digita...

A new blow-by-blow history of the Weimar Republic’s demise has unsettling resonances with current developments.

After a catastrophic debt crisis and an erratic populist government in the 2010s, Greece has seen steadier governance and economic recovery in recent years, but sustainable growth remains elusive.

This article addresses contemporary nativism in the Netherlands, precisely because it has been considered an unlikely place for the rise of such exclusionary politics given its reputation for progress...

Public Spheres Virtual Issue | Current History | University of California Press Current History Virtual Issue on Public Spheres What is the state of the public sphere around the worl...

Corruption has become endemic in Bulgaria, ranging from pervasive petty graft to state capture. Public discontent over recurring scandals has resulted in several waves of mass protests; the most recen...

The housing market has been central to the postcommunist transformations of Albania’s economy and society to a neoliberal model. Yet informal practices remain widespread, fostering speculation and cor...

How staunch an ally of Ukraine is Poland? Poland has been at the forefront of providing political backing, material assistance, and military aid to Ukraine since the Russian invasion of 2022. This coo...

Europe has entered a profound rearmament cycle driven by Russia’s war on Ukraine, sharpening US strategic conditionality, and intensifying global geopolitical rivalry. After decades of underinvestment...

The second Trump administration’s escalating and violent crackdown is intended to redefine who is allowed to be in the United States.

The new nations that emerged in the Western Hemisphere had much in common, including republican ideals and mass immigration.

Central American countries have experienced a persistent decline in the quality of their democracies, including a shift toward authoritarian or even sultanistic regimes. Despite their shared historica...

This article examines the multifaceted responses of Mexican civil society to rising organized crime and violence, with diverse strategies ranging from nonviolent protests and victim collectives to sel...