Howard W. French

Toffler in China

The work of the eclectic American futurist exerted a profound and unanticipated influence on China’s digital transformation since the 1980s.

China’s Foreclosed Possibilities

China’s political and economic development since Mao’s death in 1976 has been widely misunderstood, which makes it hard to assess where the country might be headed under Xi Jinping.

The Creation of Nigeria

Britain’s consolidation of Nigeria as a single colony has been the source of most of the major political conflicts that have roiled the country since independence.

Naipaul & Africa

Naipaul’s Unreal Africa

A Bend in the River was acclaimed for its brave truth-telling, but it fails to imagine Africa as anything other than unchanging, untamed, and primitive.

Slavery, Empire, Memory

For nearly two centuries Britain has attempted to minimize the importance of slavery to its economic prosperity.

Enemies of Progress

France’s obsession with retaining influence over its former West African colonies has led to brutal dictatorships in Burkina Faso and Chad.

A Dispatch from Our Correspondent

“The US must learn to discover the sense of purpose that comes from achieving things of virtue, things that have an objective social need.”

Can America Remain Preeminent?

The global influence of the US is threatened by the potentially chaotic unraveling of a political, security, and economic architecture that has structured the world for the past seventy or so years.

Journalism in a Time of Crisis

How has the work of journalists been altered by pandemic, protests, political violence, and the transformation of the news business?

Treasures of the Sahel

Mao’s Shadow

Africa’s Lost Kingdoms

Africa has never lacked civilizations, nor has it ever been as cut off from world events as it has been routinely portrayed.

Notes from Underground

The prison letters of Nelson Mandela

A History of Denial

‘Empires in the Sun: The Struggle for the Mastery of Africa’ by Lawrence James

Notes from Rangoon

Officially, I had come to Burma—ruled by one of the world’s most opaque and repressive regimes—to teach a one-month documentary photography course to local photojournalists. But it was the only country in Southeast Asia I had never managed to visit and I was very eager to explore the place for myself.

Looking for Hope in Burma

A Hero of the China Underground

The Debate over Rwanda

Kagame’s Hidden War in the Congo