Toby Green
Verified
As seen in:
Financial Times,
Medium,
Yahoo Life,
The Independent (UK),
The Telegraph,
Yahoo Canada,
The London Standard,
Educational Studies,
Substack,
The Times,
Yahoo Sports
and
Saturday news editor at The Times. All views my own. Any stories: toby.green@thetimes.co.uk
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Toby Green
Political opinion: Jess Brown-Fuller MP takes Chichester’s dental emergency to Parliament
See the latest news from Your World at https://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/your-world Thank you for signing up! Did you know with an ad-lite subscription to SussexWorld, you get 70% fewer ads while viewing the news that matters to you. Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Jess Brown-Fuller has secured a Parliamentary debate on dental provision in West Sussex, as residents across the area struggle to find NHS dentists accepting adult patients for routine treatment.
Lessons in pluralism from a 17th-century African town
Sometimes, little-known historical characters from long ago can give us a new window both into their times and into our own. In our current era of polycrisis, this may be more important than ever, as shown by the history of a little-known woman from the town of Cacheu in today’s Guinea-Bissau in West Africa.
The Battle Behind Digital IDs
Secrecy has always been powerful
The Women Who Ran Senegambia
When it came to the relations between men and women, 17th century Cacheu — a port town in today’s Guinea-Bissau — was a very different place to the world of Counter-Reformation Portugal, where young girls were dressed in nun’s wimples in the streets of Lisbon to prepare them for a life of seclusion.
Ashland - Local Town Pages
Redland City, Sept. 29, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Redland City, Queensland September 29, 2025 - - Publicly available Google reviews since 2022 show that households across Brisbane, the Gold Coast, and the Sunshine Coast have rated Hello Breeze Air & Electrical highly, with the majority awarding five stars. While these comments reflect individual customer experiences, taken together they offer insight into what local residents value when engaging service providers in Queensland's climate.
The battle behind digital IDs
Censorshipdigital IDKeir StarmerSocietyUK At nearly 2.5 million signatures, the petition against the Government’s proposed digital ID scheme has vastly exceeded the threshold — 100,000 — for parliamentary consideration. The plans have been decried by political figures ranging from the hard Left (Jeremy Corbyn) to the populist Right (Robert Jenrick).
The Heretic of Cacheu
In 1665 Crispina Peres, the most powerful trader in the West African slave trafficking port of Cacheu, was arrested by the Inquisition. Her enemies had conspired to denounce her for taking treatments prescribed by Senegambian healers: the djabakós. But who was Peres? And why was the Portuguese Inquisition so concerned with policing the faith of a West African woman in today’s Guinea-Bissau?
The Heretic of Cacheu: Struggles Over Life in a Seventeenth-Century West African Port
Devil in the Detail By Allen Lane 368pp £25 Subscribe or Sign In to read the full article For People Who Devour Books
The disappearance of Abdullah Öcalan
On 15 February 1999 Abdullah Öcalan was abducted in Nairobi, Kenya. Öcalan was leader of the PKK, the leftist Kurdish guerrilla movement which had initiated an armed struggle against the Turkish government in 1984 in its quest for self-determination for Kurdistan, which spreads across Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. Between then and 2012, over 20,000 PKK fighters were killed in the war.
Question time | Perspective Media International
A little while ago, I was invited to a small private dinner at a well-known academic institution in London. During the course of the evening, a prominent political journalist said: “The problem democracy faces is finding ways to make the working classes like better things.” I often hear variations on this theme and it’s worth identifying the presuppositions behind it.
Choose Your Collective Personhoods
A plausible way to sort political positions into a set of coherent categories is by asking whether they recognize collective agents, and if so, which. Do they treat individual people, by which I mean the sort of persons associated with each individual body, as parts of larger collective personhoods? Since around 1800 in Europe (though more like 1860 in the US) the most basic and effective political tendencies have been, we might say, anti-individualist.
Toby’s Banana Snax
Share Hello, this is Toby Green ’25! This recipe appeared to me in a dream. I don’t remember the context of the dream, but I woke up with the idea burned into the inside of my eyelids and a crazy hankering for bananas. When I was able to make my dream a reality, it worked better than I expected. The crunch of the cereal crust, the fluffy pancake mantle, and the sweet banana inner core come together to create a wonderful, otherworldly mouth experience. If you don’t believe me, try it yourself.
Toby Green, Author at THE HILL NEWS
Hello, this is Toby Green ’25! This recipe appeared to me in a dream. I don’t remember the context of the dream, but I woke up with the idea burned into the inside of my eyelids and a crazy hankering for bananas. When I was able to make my!-->…
Modelling our Scientific Crisis
In his short 2016 book What is Real?, Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben discussed the life and work of the Italian physicist Ettore Majorana, who disappeared mysteriously in March 1938. A brilliant 31-year-old researcher, and chair of theoretical physics at Naples University, Majorana boarded a ship to Palermo on the night of March 25, 1938, and was never seen again. Various theories on his disappearance emerged: suicide, seclusion in a monastery, or flight to Argentina.
The False Prophets who doomed Nigeria. By Toby Green
Toby Green is a Professor of History at King’s College, London. Green has worked as a writer and editor. He studied for his PhD at the Centre of West African Studies at Birmingham University. The updated edition of his book, The Covid Consensus, co-authored with Thomas Fazi, is published by Hurst. Five years ago, economists prophesied a prosperous future for Nigeria, and the rest of the continent.
The false prophets who doomed Nigeria
AfricalockdownNigeriaPandemicrowSociety Five years ago, economists prophesied a prosperous future for Nigeria, and the rest of the continent. Yet today, the country is facing what one leading Nigerian academic recently told me is its “biggest crisis since independence”. The devaluation of the Nigerian naira by 230% over the past year, along with a huge rise in inflation, has sparked an economic crisis unequalled in its modern history.
A calamity of lost youth
High numbers of deaths among young people are being ignored by the media and politicians High numbers of deaths among young people are being ignored by the media and politicians According to the UK’s Office for National Statistics’ data (rounded to the nearest thousand), in 2023 581,000 people died in the UK.
A calamity of lost youth
Ever since the World Health Organisation declared the Covid-19 pandemic over in May last year, the world has moved on. Yet people continue to die in much higher numbers than before 2020. And while covid mortality mainly impacted older people, it is younger people who are now dying disproportionately. The news cycle hasn’t said much about this, even though, of course, these unexpected deaths are no less tragic than those of the pandemic. Why the silence?
Africa needs an inquiry into Covid-19 mistakes
By Toby Green It has been four years since the WHO declared Covid-19 as an epidemic outbreak of international concern. The end of January also marks four years since the African continent first began taking measures against the novel coronavirus: Rwanda closed borders to flights from China on January 31st 2020.
Are Covid Lockdowns Behind the Rise in Extreme Poverty in the Global South?
Toby Green 6 Minute Read In the context of a huge increase in global poverty since 2020 which has driven political convulsions most especially in low-income countries, a closer look at pandemic policies is vital to safeguard against future missteps. Could pandemic poverty have been avoided, and if so, how? The Covid Inquiry has been set up by the UK government to assess how the pandemic response unfolded, and what can be learnt for the future.
Oyster grit | Perspective Magazine
Chris Ranger runs his oyster business out of three shipping containers at Mylor Harbour on the river Fal in Cornwall. He looks every part the fisherman, with a long grey beard and a salt-stained cap. Seagulls nose around the harbour, and little motorboats putter along the water. But upstream where the oysters grow, all is quiet. Centuries-old byelaws mean the Fal Oyster can only be caught under sail or in a rowing boat.
Migration crisis: Niger's junta fires the latest salvo
By Toby Green On November 27, Niger’s military government repealed a law which had been in force since 2015. The law criminalised the smuggling of migrants in the country, with a particular focus on activities in and around the historic city of Agadez. With long prison sentences and the seizure of vehicles awaiting those prosecuted under the law, many in Niger have welcomed the move as a step to remove the fetters of neo-colonialism.
Why Elon Musk and co have a moral duty to save the West
The super-rich have been integral to the West since historical records began. Only massive crises such as the Black Death or the world wars have reduced the concentration of wealth in society; nonetheless, in the aftermath, business as normal has usually resumed for the “one per cent”.
Why Elon Musk and co have a moral duty to save the West
The super-rich have been integral to the West since historical records began. Only massive crises such as the Black Death or the world wars have reduced the concentration of wealth in society; nonetheless, in the aftermath, business as normal has usually resumed for the “one per cent”.
The late controversial US diplomat Henry Kissinger in Africa
By Toby Green The news of Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s death on Wednesday has brought many reactions. On the international stage, Kissinger is most infamous as the backer of the coup against socialist President Salvador Allende of Chile in 1973 – but he also drove key American policies during decolonisation, and especially in Portugal’s African colonies. Kissinger’s aim was to bolster American power at the expense of African sovereignty.
Alejandro de la Fuente, with the collaboration of César García del Pino and Bernardo Iglesias Delgado, Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century (Chapel Hill NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2008)
Alejandro de la Fuente, with the collaboration of César García del Pino and Bernardo Iglesias Delgado, Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century (Chapel Hill NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2008)
Nobel Prize: More African writers should be Nobel laureates
By Toby Green It is the richest, oldest, and – many would say – the most prestigious prize in World Literature. On October 5, the Nobel Prize in Literature (worth 11 million Swedish Krone – roughly US$993,000) was awarded to the Norwegian writer Jon Fosse for “his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable”. Fosse had been spoken about as a contender for the prize for many years and said that it had not come as a complete surprise.
How cashew price volatility fuels Guinea-Bissau’s food crisis
Almost unreported by the world’s media, the West African country of Guinea-Bissau has been suffering from a major food crisis over the past few months. While media attention was on the outcome of the country’s parliamentary elections in June – won by the opposition to the sitting President Umaro Sissoco Embalo – the price paid to producers of the country’s sole cash crop has halved compared to 2022. Cashew exports make up 95% of the country’s exports, and many rural farmers are facing a crisis.
What Lockdown Did to Africa Original
By Toby Green When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Africa was immediately a point of particular concern. As early as March 15, 2020, South Africa declared a “state of disaster.” As one Science article then described it, “Experts worry the virus may ravage countries with weak health systems.” There were concerns about healthcare capacities, with shortages of intensive care and trained nurses.
Africa’s Quest for Sovereignty
Since 2021, military coups have ousted governments across much of West and Central Africa. The wave of coups started in Chad (April 2021), then spread to Mali (May 2021), Guinea (September 2021), Burkina Faso (January and September 2022), Niger (July), and most recently Gabon, where the Bongo family was dislodged from power after ruling the country since independence.
ERIS: Should Africa worry about the new Covid-19 variant?
By Toby Green The world’s press has received news of a “Covid variant” in the past week. “ERIS” was labelled a “variant of interest” by the World Health Organization on August 17th. The next day, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus declared that “although COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency, it remains a global health threat”. Most public interest so far has been directed at the West.
Give thanks to Africa - its
Obelisks from the 4th century AD in Aksum, Ethopia - Alamy “Barely more than fifty thousand years ago, the primary ancestors of every single human being alive today lived in eastern Africa.” The historian Christopher Ehret begins his new history, Ancient Africa, with this simple, arresting statement, which immediately puts the importance of his book into relief.
Western lockdowns still torment Africa Original
Nearly three months after the World Health Organization declared that Covid-19 was no longer a global health emergency, the repercussions of Africa’s policy response to the pandemic are yet to subside. Quite the opposite: as a result of its response to a contagion that had a relatively low impact on African mortality, the continent now faces a decade or more of austerity. To understand what this will mean, look no further than the smallest country on the mainland.
Who really drove the abolition of slavery?
It is a story that is familiar to many readers from dimly remembered history lessons at junior school: the Abolition of the slave trade was one of the great humanitarian causes of human history, driven by evangelical anti-slavery activists in England. The Quakers were key actors, with figures such as Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson spearheading the movement in the UK, leading to the eventual passage of the act abolishing the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1807.
Back to the future – Perspective Magazine
Even the most ardent Pollyanna would admit that the past few years haven’t gone well for human beings. Increasing political polarisation was magnified by the way algorithms drive people apart. A controversial pandemic response followed, enormously accentuating existing trends towards inequality, surveillance capitalism and the corporate takeover of the public sphere.
The false lesson of lockdown scepticism
Now that the US and WHO have both declared an end to the Covid health emergency, one might be tempted to think the pandemic nightmare is finally over. Indeed, for most people, it had already been overtaken by more pressing issues, ranging from inflation to war. But for those of us who maintained that the real nightmare was not the virus itself, but rather the governments’ dystopian response to it in the name of “public health”, there is little to celebrate. For starters, we are still a minority.
No Brazil without Angola
In March 1684, a prince from the African kingdom of Ndongo arrived in Rome. Lourenço da Silva de Mendonça was there, as José Lingna Nafafé explains in his new book, to demand the legal abolition of Atlantic slavery. He was bringing ‘an ethical and criminal kufunda [case] before the Vatican court, which accused the nations involved’ – including the Vatican, Italy, Spain and Portugal – of ‘crimes against humanity’.
How Wagner plundered Sudan’s gold
A new Cold War is playing out in Africa Source: Unherd BY MARTIN PLAUT Al-Burhan in Khartoum in 2021 (Mahmoud Hjaj/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) Martin Plaut is former Africa Editor of the BBC World Service and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. He has advised both the British and American governments.
A Look Back at Lockdowns – - James Allan
Two left-leaning authors, historian Toby Green and economist Thomas Fazi, have written a new book on the global response to the Covid pandemic, The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor? A Critique from the Left. For some reason, they chose to subtitle itwith a question. Was the standard response to Covid an “assault on democracy and the poor”? That punctuation might lead readers to expect a fraught debate about the wisdom of Covid policy across the globe. There is no debate.
Questions the Covid Inquiry must ask
Do public inquiries ever deliver public satisfaction? Often, they provide more questions than answers. And rarely in a timely fashion. It took Chilcot seven years to produce his report into the Iraq war, after two previous whitewashes, and the Grenfell Tower inquiry took four and a half years to produce little more than a “merry-go-round of buck-passing” to the tune of £150 million in legal fees.
Hvorfor er overtallige dødsfall fortsatt så høye?
Vi kan ikke bare skylde på et sviktende NHS Av Thomas Fazi og Toby Green Rundt midten av fjoråret begynte forskere i flere land å legge merke til noe urovekkende: til tross for fallet i Covid-dødsfall overalt, økte overtallige dødsfall (sammenlignet med femårsgjennomsnittet før pandemien). Enda mer bekymringsfullt var det at et uforholdsmessig stort antall av disse overtallige dødsfallene fant sted hos unge mennesker.
Pandemic Response and the Cost of Lockdowns
One of the editors of the new book published by Routledge – Pandemic Response and the Cost of Lockdowns: Global Debates from the Humanities and Social Sciences – Peter Sutoris (assistant Professor, University of York) discusses the book with CG steering committee member Professor Toby Green.
Why are excess deaths still so high?
Around the middle of last year, researchers in several countries started noticing something disturbing: despite the fall in Covid deaths everywhere, excess deaths (compared to the pre-pandemic five-year average) were actually rising. Even more worryingly, a disproportionate number of those excess deaths were occurring in young people. This was the opposite of what you would expect in the receding phase of a pandemic — one which had largely spared young people in the first place.
Gestion de la Covid. L'Occident a-t-il imposé l'austérité à l'Afrique ? (Unherd)
Pourtant, la raison de l'augmentation des prêts avant Covid n'est pas que le continent était déjà en difficulté économique. Au contraire, c'est le caractère florissant de la situation macroéconomique de l'Afrique avant l'arrivée de Covid qui l'a vue accumuler cette dette.
Did the West impose austerity on Africa?
The 21st century was supposed to belong to Africa: it heralded the start of the “Africa Rising” era, when the continent seemed destined to enjoy an extended period of economic growth and rising incomes. Two decades later, however, that narrative no longer holds. Last month, 22 low-income nations on the continent were suffering from debt distress or at high-risk of it, while African debt repayments were at their highest level for over 20 years.
Why is the West locking down China?
The start of the new year has unshakeable feeling of Groundhog Day to it. We’re not even a week into January, and already epidemiologists are warning of new Covid variants, while passengers travelling from China to the UK will once again be required to show a negative Covid test before boarding. Many of us have been left wondering: have we woken up in 2023 — or 2020?
South Africa: Pandemic Policies in South Africa - a Model of Neocolonial State Capture
South Africa: Pandemic Policies in South Africa - a Model of Neocolonial State Capture analysis By Toby Green Debating Ideas aims to reflect the values and editorial ethos of the African Arguments book series, publishing engaged, often radical, scholarship, original and activist writing from within the African continent and beyond. It offers debates and engagements, contexts and controversies, and reviews and responses flowing from the African Arguments books.
Pandemic Policies in South Africa: A Model of Neocolonial State Capture
Debating Ideas aims to reflect the values and editorial ethos of the African Arguments book series, publishing engaged, often radical, scholarship, original and activist writing from within the African continent and beyond. It offers debates and engagements, contexts and controversies, and reviews and responses flowing from the African Arguments books.
The Power of a Good Example: Nicaragua and the Covid Response
In this podcast, CG steering committee member Toby Green talks with John Perry, contributor to the London Review of Books, FAIR and other publications on Nicaraguan affairs. Perry gives the perspective of the pandemic response in Nicaragua and Honduras, 2 neighboring countries in Central America.
Show More
loading
Actions
Get in touch with Toby
Contact Toby, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack