Submissions Guidelines

The editors invite the submission of methodological and substantive articles devoted to the application of other disciplines and branches of learning to research in history, without geographical or chronological limits. JIH articles demonstrate how methodologically innovative research can improve our understanding of the past. The Journal also publishes research notes (which generally introduce or discuss methodological innovations in the writing of history), as well as occasional, brief bibliographical notes and critical comments (under the rubrique, "Comment and Controversy") on topics of special interest to historians and other social scientists.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History publishes review articles and short book reviews by invitation only. JIH arranges with selected scholars to review books of importance to the growth of history and historical research, whether published originally as history or as psychology, political science, sociology, anthropology, numismatics, and so on. JIH accepts no unsolicited reviews or review essays and takes no responsibility for them.

Electronic submissions via email attachment should be sent to Ryan Patten, Managing Editor ([email protected]). The address for submissions via regular mail, if electronic submission is unavailable, is:

Ryan Patten
70 Proctor Street 
Salem, MA 01970-2109

Brief Style Sheet

Articles, Research Notes, and Comments

1. The preferred means of submission is by email attachment in Microsoft Word to the managing editor. Otherwise, type or print the article on a good grade of bond (not erasable or legal-size), and restrict the length to no more than 30 pages, including double-spaced text, notes, tables, and figures.
2. Double-space everything, including extracts, notes, and tables.
3. Consolidate note numbers at the end of paragraphs. For example, a string of citations and remarks in the first paragraph would all be collected as note 1, with the note number in superscript at the end of the paragraph.
4. If a name appears only in the text, cite it in full at the first mention -- by first name, not just first initial -- no matter how familiar it may be, and by last name thereafter. If a name occurs both in text and note, use the last name in text and provide the full name in the note. Never include such titles as Professor, Dr., Sir, Ms., and the like. Use identifying phrases sparingly (if at all) and always in apposition after the name.
5. For editorial convenience, use endnotes in the manuscript; they will be set as footnotes when published. Please do not insert APA-style references to a bibliography into the text. When citing books, please give author's full name (first and last); the complete title (including subtitle), in uppercase and lowercase (not all lowercase); the city and date of publication (but not the publisher); and any relevant page numbers. Do not use "p." or "pp." before page references. When citing articles, supply author's full name, complete title, name of periodical, volume number (in roman numerals), year of publication, and page numbers. Do not include series information, issue numbers, or months. For all subsequent references to books or articles, cite author's last name, a shortened title, and pages, using ibid. and idem when applicable, but not op.cit. or loc.cit.

Book Reviews and Review Essays

Book reviewers are asked to keep JIH's goals in mind. Please convey an appreciation of the coverage, content, and conclusions of the book under review, and pay strict attention to its methodology, particularly its use of research techniques from more than one academic discipline. JIH's readers are concerned less with advances in a single field or specialty than with the general lessons to be learned from various approaches to historical problems. Thus, research design should be the cornerstone of each review, even if a book's inadequacies in that area, or its indifference to interdisciplinary methods, should thereby become the predominant issue.

A review essay is an opportunity to discuss a general subject from a macroscopic point of view. However, a review essay need not always discuss the books under review in any kind of detail. The first two or three paragraphs set the stage; they offer the framework within which the book(s) belong(s). As the essay proceeds, a larger perspective may supervene and inform the subject matter. In the end, the essayist draws conclusions about the review book(s) with regard to the larger discourse undertaken. For example, a review essay based on a book about a particular environmental issue might serve as an occasion for a more extended treatment of pollution.

1. Book reviews should be 500 to 700 words long and review essays upward of 3,000 words.
2. Double-space all elements in the review -- extracts, notes, tables, etc.
3. Please employ the following form (double-spaced) for the heading of reviews and review essays:
   • The Economy of Europe in an Age of Crisis, 1600-1750. By Jan de Vries (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1976) 284 pp. $14.95 (cloth), $4.95 (paper)
4. If a book under review is a collection of conference papers, it is not necessary to discuss, or even name, the conference.
5. The citation of names in reviews follows the same style as in articles, except that the full names of review-book authors appear only in the main heading.
6. When using quotations from review books -- however brief they may be -- put the page numbers in parentheses before the period at the end of the sentence.
7. The style for notes in reviews is the same as that for articles, except that the notes in reviews need not be consolidated at the end of paragraphs with a single superscript number.
8. The name and affiliation of reviewers goes at the end of the review, flush right.