Named after its founder, the company was established in 1984 when James Currey, originally from South Africa, left his position at Heinemann Educational Books to set up an Africa-focused publisher.

[3][4][5][6] Currey cut his publishing teeth at the Cape Town outpost of Oxford University Press, as well as by spending time moonlighting for The New African, a liberal publication he followed into exile in London when it was stamped on by the Apartheid authorities in 1964.

Each "New African weekend," I would paste up work by writers with names such as James Ngugi, Bessie Head, Wole Soyinka, Zeke Mphahlele, Dennis Brutus and Chinua Achebe.

[11]As will be familiar to readers of its East African Studies series, for example, that James Currey has had just such a long-running three-continent effort shared between itself, Heinemann Kenya, and Ohio University Press.

[12][13] The James Currey Collection at the University of Oxford's St Cross College was formally opened on 2 March 2019 at an event featuring the launch of Tsehai Berhane-Selassie's new book on Ethiopian Warriorhood, a lecture by author and Fellow of St Cross, Richard Reid, and a discussion by panellists including key African women publishers Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, Margaret Busby, Nana Ayebia Clarke and Zaahida Nabagereka.