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Journal overview

This acclaimed journal allows historians in a broad range of specialities to experiment with new ways of presenting and interpreting history. Rethinking History challenges the accepted ways of doing history and rethinks the traditional paradigms, providing a unique forum in which practitioners and theorists can debate and expand the boundaries of the discipline.

Rethinking History  provides a balance of features not usually found in academic history journals. The mix often includes:

  • Articles of 5,000 or 7,000 words
  • Concepts - papers exploring key concepts or categories of historical analysis
  • Controversies - debates between historians
  • Essays of 8,000 to 10,000 words
  • Experimental pieces
  • Invitations to Historians - historians explain how and why they write history
  • Miniatures - pieces of 1,500 words or less, aimed to show brevity can be the soul of history
  • Re-reviews - reassessments of classic history texts
  • Reconsiderations - essays that "reconsider" the body of work produced by a single historian, an entire school or field
  • Reviews and review articles
  • Themed Issues

"I hope that this journal will become that missing venue where historians, young and old, can try out something new, can indulge in experiments... that bring us into new relationships with the traces of the past... We believe that the writing of History can be an art, and that innovation in any art calls for boldness, audacity, and the courage to try out things that can seem strange, even to the author..."
Robert A. Rosenstone, Founding Editor, Rethinking History

"By Re-thinking History I mean expanding the study of the nature of history in all its forms and conceptualizations. Rethinking it must mean questioning the boundaries of how we study the past"
Alun Munslow, UK Editor, Rethinking History

"My passion has been to re-think the writing of history, to demonstrate the inextricable links between content and form, between what we have to say and how we say it, between our arguments and interpretations and stories and our choice of structure, language, voice(s), imagery, point(s) of view, and more. I am eager to work with and publish writers at any stage in their careers who are thinking hard about the form of their writing. Perhaps they are learning from poets, novelists, and writers of general non-fiction as well as from fellow historians; or reviving and re-imagining some old and unappreciated form; or striking out in new directions in search of literary narrative, interpretation, or theory"
James Goodman, US Editor, Rethinking History

Peer Review Policy:

All research articles published in this journal have undergone rigorous peer review, based on initial editor screening and anonymized refereeing by at least two anonymous referees.

Authors can choose to publish gold open access in this journal.

Read the Instructions for Authors for information on how to submit your article.

Read full aims and scope

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