American Heritage Series of History Books Reviews Bias

How does the American Historical Review (AHR) operate?

As the flagship journal of the American Historical Association, its procedures, guidelines, and general workings should be as transparent as possible. Hither, then, I would similar to address 5 possible myths nigh the AHR.

The rejection rate for article submissions to the AHR is so high-­it'due south really a waste of time to submit something when the odds of acceptance are so poor.

It's true that, statistically speaking, the "odds" are not very favorable: only about 9 pct of submissions find their way into our pages. But a couple of things need to exist underscored. Offset, many submissions are rejected only considering they don't meet the minimal guidelines for consideration: they're either much too short, or exceedingly long; they're on an extremely narrow topic; or they're written past people who have no thought that we're a journal of historical scholarship. Indeed, we receive many submissions whose authors clearly seem to believe we're the American Heritage magazine or another such publication aimed at a full general readership. So the statistic cited higher up is somewhat misleading. If we were to count all serious submissions, the odds would be much less daunting.

Second, all submissions receive at to the lowest degree an in-­house review; those considered promising are sent to two members of the Board of Editors; those that pass these two stages are sent for evaluation to three experts in the relevant field. In other words, you lot go something in render for submitting your work. Nosotros operate nether the assumption that nosotros are not only publishing the best possible piece of work we can detect, simply besides contributing to historical scholarship by providing constructive feedback on pieces that ultimately volition be published elsewhere.

Yes, just you merely publish work past senior scholars. Junior professors, recent PhDs, and graduate students don't stand a gamble of having their work taken seriously by the AHR.

Not true! While it is somewhat rare for graduate students to have their piece of work accepted, it has happened-­and inside recent memory. More to the signal, nearly of our published authors are at the associate or even assistant professor level, and some have but recently completed their PhDs. Indeed, we find younger scholars frequently have the freshness of arroyo and intellectual energy that brand them platonic authors to work with.

Only it takes and so long to become something published in the AHR-­the review process is endless and the backlog of articles enormous.

Once again, this is simply not the case. As of this writing (Oct 1), the articles I am accepting volition exist published in the April issue of the periodical-­that is, the current interval between credence and publication runs to around vi months (information technology'southward frequently less). We practice not, in other words, have a massive inventory of articles, such that concluding credence of your piece ways an impossibly long wait for publication. It is true that our review process can be prolonged, involving three stages of evaluation (run across higher up response to Myth #1). And alas, sometimes reviewers, especially outside experts, take advantage of the fact that the editor of the American Historical Review has little leverage over them. Just we are conscientious to monitor the process, sending reminders and increasingly strongly worded nudges. And it must be said that the overwhelming bulk of reviewers not only submit their reports in a timely manner but are also marvelously generous and detailed with their remarks. In short, the length of the review process varies quite a scrap. Depending upon the state and quality of the initial manuscript, information technology can be either quite involved, meaning several rounds of revision, or relatively speedy. It is thus difficult to generalize about the time betwixt the initial submission and publication. But an interval of a yr is hardly unusual.

The AHR is non interested in piece of work in my field. It almost never publishes annihilation in "Ten."

We publish betwixt 25 and xxx articles a yr over five issues. It should exist remembered in this context that the AHR is rare amongst journals of historical scholarship in that our purview is unrestricted in terms of period and geographical area; our interests are global and cover all of recorded time (now even "deep" history). Since the '90s nosotros have striven to intermission out of what had been a general bias towards European and North American history. I don't think that anyone can at present accuse us of ethnocentrism. What this means is that some fields, topics and periods may seem slighted, when it'due south really a effect of taking as catholic an arroyo to history as possible. We aim to publish highly accomplished work that has the greatest possibility of appealing to our broad readership-­regardless of the field or period.

Books for review are assigned to reviewers on a haphazard basis. The AHR only rarely finds the right scholar to review a book.

We receive over 3,000 books a yr for review; we only take the chapters, in terms of both labor and space, to review ane,000 titles. The whole process, from vetting books received, to finding and assigning potential reviewers, to receiving and copyediting reviews, is an enormously complex and prolonged i. Nosotros accept every step of information technology very seriously-­peculiarly selecting a "pick-­list" of potential reviewers. At that place are vii editorial administration (EAs)-­graduate students at Indiana Academy with expertise in diverse fields and languages-­who accept care of this process under the supervision of Moureen Coulter, assistant editor for book reviews. We take a database of more 40,000 names-­historians from effectually the world-­which they use to select lists of potential reviewers for books. In drawing up these lists, the EAs consult with members of the Board of Editors as well as faculty at Indiana University. One thing to note is that in choosing potential reviewers, our long-­standing policy is to eliminate anybody acknowledged or thanked past the writer of the book-­a pour of names that can be very long indeed these days. The signal is that in relatively small fields, with a handful of acknowledged experts, generously spreading your thanks can mean narrowing considerably the range of potential reviewers. While that can make our job harder, we accept very seriously the job of finding the right scholars to review books.

If readers would like to learn more about the AHR, I invite them to nourish the Encounter the Editors and Staff session at the AHA annual coming together in Washington, DC. Or electronic mail me.

—Robert A. Schneider (Indiana Univ.) is the editor of the American Historical Review.

AHR Welcomes New Members to the Board of Editors

We are happy to denote the appointment of v new members to the Board of  Editors (pictured  beneath). They join the eight currently serving members: David A. Bell (Princeton Univ.), Timothy Beck (Univ. of British Columbia), Harold J. Cook (Brown Univ.), Greg Grandin (New York Univ.), Susan Juster (Univ. of Michigan), Emily Rosenberg (Univ. of California, Irvine), Carol Symes (Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), and Megan Vaughan (The Graduate Centre, CUNY).

The primary responsibility of the members of the Board of Editors of the AHR is to review manuscripts sent to them by the editor. They also serve as an advisory quango on all matters relating to the journal.

Herman Bennett, The City University of New York

Belinda Davis, Rutgers University

Prasannan Parthasarathi, Boston College

Jan Plamper, Goldsmiths, University of London

Judith Tucker, Georgetown University

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Source: https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/november-2013/five-myths-about-the-american-historical-review

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