Editing Current History (section)

== History ==
The first of the journal, which was initially called ''The New York Times Current History of the European War'', was published on December 12, 1914.<ref>{{Cite web |date=1914 |title=Vol. 1, No. 1, December 12, 1914 of The New York Times Current History of the European War |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/i40239528 |website=www.jstor.org |language=en}}</ref>

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.

Contributors to ''Current History'' in the publication's early years included [[George Bernard Shaw]], [[Winston Churchill]], [[Charles A. Beard]], [[Allan Nevins]], and [[Henry Steele Commager]].  [[Grover Clark]] was its Beijing correspondent. 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]].

The magazine was linked to an international scandal in the run-up to World War II. ''The New York Times'' had sold ''Current History'' in 1936 to the editor Merle Tracy; in 1939 it was sold again, to an ownership group that included [[Joseph Hilton Smyth]], who also acquired such magazines as ''The Living Age'' and ''[[The North American Review]]''.  Smyth's association with ''Current History'' ended the same year, but he and two associates, in connection with their publishing activities, were later convicted of acting as agents for the Japanese government without registering with the State Department. ''Current History'' addressed this episode in its October 1942 issue, maintaining that Smyth during the months that he held an ownership interest in the publication did not control editorial policies."<ref>''The New York Times'', "3 Japanese Agents Get 7-Year Terms," November 13, 1942.</ref><ref>''Current History'', October 1942, pp. 137–138.</ref>