Ana Lucia Araujo is professor of history at Howard University in Washington, DC. She is the author or editor of fifteen books, including, most recently, The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism. Her work has appeared in publications including the Washington Post, Slate, and Newsweek.
The Rajapaksa dynasty personalised political success so completely that it also personalised failure. A return to the old formula is unlikely to address the conditions that changed Sri Lankan politics after 2022.
The arrest of Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thera raises a difficult question about the reach of judicial power: can a procedural defect in a presidential pardon, granted in 2019 after intervention by Sri Lanka’s highest Buddhist authorities, retrospectively erase seven years
Former minister Champika Ranawaka has sharply criticised Sri Lanka’s handling of Trincomalee port and its growing strategic engagement with India, arguing that Colombo is
Sri Lanka’s garment export earnings fell 7.4% in August 2026 compared with the same month a year earlier, according to export data released by
The following excerpts are adapted from the author’s book Humans in Shackles: An Atlantic History of Slavery, published by the University of Chicago Press. We are living in a moment in which
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