Submission Guidelines

The editors invite submissions that approach history as a critical endeavor. We are particularly interested in essays that press the boundaries of history’s disciplinary norms. In that spirit, we also welcome work from scholars thinking through the past in fields outside of history.

To submit an article, please send it to History of the Present, [email protected].

The process of review is as follows: first the editors read the article to see if it fits the journal’s stated mission. If they find that it does, it is then sent, anonymized, to two outside reviewers who are asked to make one of three recommendations: Accept (with minor revisions); Revise and Resubmit; Reject. In all cases, authors are provided with the readers’ reports.

When an article is accepted, authors are provided with a Duke University Press style guide for the journal.

The journal accepts articles that vary in length from 9,000 to 11,000 words. From time to time, there is a special thematic issue that is announced in advance in a call for papers. Sometimes, scholars propose a thematic issue for editorial consideration. We also publish interventions: pieces that make a substantial argument about a topic, concept, or issue of current concern. Interventions are usually around 5,000 words. From time to time, we publish a forum that reflects on a classic work from a contemporary perspective. For this we recruit essays from scholars we think will provide critical commentary on the text.

If there are tables, images, or figures that accompany an article, we ask that they be submitted as separate files. The full guidelines for permissions and art preparation, including alt text, are part of Duke University Press’s submission guidelines.