The World Today (magazine)

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The World Today has been landing on the desks of diplomats, parliamentarians, and chief executives since 1945. It is a quarterly global affairs magazine, published by Chatham House, the renowned British foreign policy institute. Every issue is sent to decision-makers in FTSE 100 companies, major embassies in London, and key figures in Parliament, Whitehall, the media, and academia. The questions worth asking are: how did a niche policy journal earn that kind of reach, and what shaped the voice it carries into those rooms?

• 2. A Wartime Inheritance

  ›

  Chatham House had been monitoring international news since 1925 through a publication called the Bulletin of International News. That bulletin ran for two decades before being replaced, in 1945, by The World Today. The timing was not incidental. The end of the Second World War brought a new international order, and the Institute chose to meet that moment with a new publication designed to reach beyond specialist readers. The World Today was built from the start to bridge internal Chatham House research and the broader public conversation about global affairs.

• 3. Who Fills the Pages

  ›

  Jon Snow, the prominent British journalist, is among the contributors whose work has appeared in the magazine. Former Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark has also written for it, as has Martin Griffiths, a British diplomat, and Conservative MP Justine Greening. The range matters. Analysis sits alongside commentary, interviews, book reviews, photography, and original reportage. This mix gives the magazine a texture that few pure policy journals can match, drawing in voices from government, journalism, and civil society within the same issue.

• 4. Editors Who Shaped the Voice

  ›

  Liliana Brisby edited the magazine from 1975 until her retirement in 1983. Graham Walker, who lived from 1946 to 2016, held the editor's chair from 1995 to 2010. Alan Philps followed, editing from 2012 to 2021. Roxanne Escobales then took over in May 2021 and stayed through 2024. Mike Higgins is the current editor. Each handover carried the magazine through a different chapter of global politics, from the Cold War to the post-9/11 world to the fractured international landscape of the 2020s, and the editorial line has had to stretch across all of them.

• 5. Reach and Readership

  ›

  Subscription to The World Today is open to individuals and institutions, and access is also bundled into Chatham House membership. That dual channel, paid subscription alongside institutional membership, gives it a readership that spans curious private readers and professional analysts alike. The magazine's distribution to major embassies in London places it inside the diplomatic circuits where international policy decisions are debated. Whitehall officials and members of the British Parliament receive it alongside figures in academia and the media, making it one of the few outlets that moves across all those worlds simultaneously.