Helen Epstein

Left Behind

While poverty in America is all too real, it’s not the only reason for the epidemic of deaths of despair.

Violence & the Inuit

The Highest Suicide Rate in the World

When I visited Nunavut’s capital in July, virtually every Inuit I met had lost at least one relative to suicide.

Rwanda: A Deathly Hush

How Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Front obscured Washington’s role in a particularly bloody period of central African history

The Mass Murder We Don’t Talk About

Judi Rever’s ‘In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front’

Justice Not Done

Congo for the Congolese

A century and a half of malign interference by imperial powers and marauding neighbors is enough. The only way out of this mess is to deliver Congo back to the Congolese.

Who's Cheating Kenyan Voters?

America may not be as neutral in Kenya’s electoral contest as it claims to be.

Kenya: Election & Cover-Up

Another rigged election in Africa is not news. But that US election observers were so quick to endorse it is shocking.

Remembering Bob Silvers

On the late editor of The New York Review

Uganda's Fake Democracy

If violence breaks out in Uganda in the aftermath of February’s presidential election, it will demonstrate the failure not of democracy, but of the sham version of it under which Ugandans—and so many others in so much of the world—are forced to live.

Uganda: When Democracy Doesn’t Count

Uganda, one of the US’s most important African military allies, will hold presidential and parliamentary elections on February 18. Despite strong opposition, the election may be decided outside the voting booth.

When Mothers Neglect Children

The Strange Politics of Saving the Children

Who’s Afraid of African Democracy?

A decade after the peace process in Burundi came to what seemed a successful conclusion, and despite billions of dollars in humanitarian aid, the country appears to be falling apart again.

Black & White Zambia

Ebola in Liberia: An Epidemic of Rumors

Emergency measures rapidly contained other outbreaks. What went wrong this time?

Colossal Corruption in Africa

Ebola's Hidden Truth

Even as Ebola hysteria rages in the US, the epidemic here in Liberia, which is supposed to be its epicenter, seems to be subsiding.

Uganda: The General and the Dictator

The explosive claims of a former top officer now in exile