Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective
A project of the Public History Initiative and eHistory in the History Department at The Ohio State University.
Origins is a free and ad-free monthly publication (appearing on the 15th of each month).
In each issue of Origins, an academic expert will analyze a particular current issue political, cultural, or social in a larger, deeper context. In addition to the analysis provided by each months feature, Origins will also include images, maps, graphs and other material to complement the essay.
Click here to visit the Origins site
Recent Issues
by Mytheli Sreenivas
As the population of the globe surges past 6 billion, India is on the verge of surpassing China as the world's most populous nation. For at least two centuries India has struck many Westerners as a place that is over-populated, famine-prone, and, as a result, a threat to global stability. In fact, as historian Mytheli Sreenivas details, the question of 'over-population' is a relative one: is India producing too many people or too few resources? Does a growing population represent an opportunity or a danger? These questions take on a new urgency and relevance as India emerges as a major economic power and consumer society, and as the world confronts an ongoing food crisis. This month, Sreenivas puts these pressing concerns about population in historical perspective.
by Peter R. Mansoor
Renewed American efforts to 'win' the war in Afghanistan against a resurgent Taliban, as well as the ongoing war in Iraq, have kept the question of counterinsurgency strategy at the forefront of U.S. military and public life. This month, Peter R. Mansoor--a professor of history at Ohio State and a Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired) who served most recently as the executive officer to General David Petraeus, the Commanding General of Multi-National Force-Iraq--examines the historical patterns of counterinsurgency doctrine. He explores the lessons of the Iraq War for Afghanistan and the radical changes to U.S. strategy of the last few years.
by Scott Levi
In April of this year, a group of some 300 women protesters demanded that the government in Kabul repeal a repressive new law that went so far as to permit marital rape. They were publicly harassed and labeled “whores”. Around the world, many observers were outraged. The law seemed to signal a return to the kinds of policies that the Taliban had instituted when it ruled Afghanistan—when the burqa stood as a haunting symbol of the regime’s subjugation of women. While visitors to the country commonly report encountering a land somehow “lost in time” where women are almost completely absent from the public world, this month historian Scott Levi examines the century-long efforts to improve women's lives in Afghanistan.
by Donald A. Hempson
Rising from the ashes of the Second World War, the European Union has been perhaps the most important development in modern European history. Initially, it only included those countries we think of as ‘Western Europe.’ Since the collapse of the Soviet empire, however, membership in the EU has expanded dramatically and rapidly and now includes some 27 nations. This has created not simply logistical complications, but a debate over what ‘European’ means. This month, historian Donald Hempson looks at two recent joiners—The Czech Republic (which recently held the EU's rotating presidency) and Slovakia (which recently adopted the Euro currency)—and how their histories have defined their approaches to European integration.
by Sébastien Peyrouse
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 five new nations gained independence in Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. When they emerged onto the world stage they were little understood in the West, often confused with one another, and the subject of jokes on late-night TV. Increasingly, however, these nations demand our attention, whether because of the oil and gas resources in the region, because of the environmental crises — most dramatically the disappearance of the Aral Sea — and because of the strategic location between Russia, China and Afghanistan.
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Current Issue
December 2009 (Vol. 3, issue 3)
For those in the former Soviet Bloc, 1989 has been called an annus mirabilis -- a year of miracles. With astonishing speed, communist rule ended in Eastern Europe, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, and the nature of Europe was changed entirely. In 2009, those countries, from Germany to Bulgaria to Poland, have all mounted celebrations of the twentieth anniversary of this hope-filled year. Yet, two decades after the collapse of communism, many in those countries found themselves unsure of what, precisely, they were celebrating. Did 1989 really mark a moment of out-with-the-old-and-in-with-the-new, and how much had really changed in the intervening years? This month historian Theodora Dragostinova explores the impact of 1989 on the region and the legacy of history in today's Eastern Europe.
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