Focus and Scope
Historical Geography is an annual journal that publishes scholarly articles, book reviews, conference reports, and commentaries in historical geography and cognate fields. The journal encourages an interdisciplinary and international dialogue among scholars, professionals, and students interested in geographic perspectives on the past. Concerned with maintaining historical geography's ongoing intellectual contribution to scientific, social scientific and humanities-based disciplines,
Historical Geography is especially committed to presenting the work of both established and emerging scholars.
All articles are Open Access following an initial 12 month period in which they are exclusively available to institutional and individual subscribers, as well as members of the American Association of Geographer’s Historical Geography Specialty Group. Other published materials, including the published versions of the Distinguished Historical Geographer lecture, roundtables, and other special reports, are available Open Access immediately on publication.
Originating as a non-peer reviewed newsletter,
Historical Geography was established as a peer-reviewed, annual scholarly journal in 1993. The journal is sponsored by the Historical Geography Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers and published by the University of Nebraska Press.
Peer Review Process
Historical Geography welcomes the submission of original, unpublished manuscripts for publication in the journal. Manuscripts are reviewed through a double-blind review process, typically by a minimum of two reviewers with expertise in the primary subject area of the manuscript or a closely related field. Reviewers are asked to consider whether the manuscript is suitable for publication based on its: (a) originality and significance, (b) use of appropriate methods and evidence, (c) structure and presentation, (d) conceptual and theoretical soundness, and (e) conclusions. Reviewers also evaluate manuscripts in terms of the author's ability to communicate clearly in text, maps, and images. Final approval of manuscripts for publication rests with the editors.
Manuscripts should be submitted through the Historical Geography online portal, available at
http://www.editorialmanager.com/HG/. Direct email submissions are accepted and can be sent to
hgeditors@syr.edu.
Author Guidelines
GENERAL SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Manuscripts should be no greater than 10,000 words in length (inclusive of notes, maps, charts, tables, and images), double spaced, free of excessive jargon, and prepared according to the
Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition (University of Chicago Press, 2017). Submissions should be accompanied by an abstract of up to 150 words. Authors interested in submitting commentaries, conference reports, or book reviews should contact the editors in advance to discuss their ideas.
Manuscripts should be submitted as Microsoft Word (.docx) files, free of identifying names or references to the author(s). To ensure blind reviews, we recommend using the “Inspect Document” function to ensure authors names do not appear in the document properties.
Please make sure major elements (title, author names, epigraphs, headings, block quotes, endnotes, etc.) stand out visually from one another. For example, a block quote shouldn’t be formatted with the same margins as the running text, or it will run the risk of being styled incorrectly. In addition, if you use multiple levels of section heads, they should be visually distinct form one another and consistent throughout the manuscript.
Avoid using tabs to indicate indents; instead use Word's ruler to properly indent your content.
Tables
Tables should be placed in the Word files in the approximate location the author would like them to appear. Please note that all tables should be composed in Word, using Word’s native table tools, and not set as images. When formatting tables, titles should appear at the top.
GUIDELINES FOR CITATIONS
All bibliographic information should be included in sequentially numbered full endnotes. The first endnote citation for a source should carry the complete information, with short citations thereafter. Where relevant, digital object identifiers (doi), hyperlinks, and links to online media may also be included. Please use the following forms:
Book:
William Wyckoff,
How to Read the American West: A Field Guide (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2014), 79.
Wyckoff,
How to Read the American West, 33.
Article in an edited volume:
Nancy Langston, “Iron Mines, Toxicity, and Indigenous Communities in the Lake Superior Basin,” in Mining North America: An Environmental History Since 1522, eds. J.R. McNeill and George Vrtis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017), 315.
Langston, “Iron Mines, Toxicity, and Indigenous Communities in the Lake Superior Basin,” 320.
Article in a journal:
Sarah Louise Evans, “Mapping terra incognita: women’s participation in Royal Geographical Society-supported expeditions 1913-1939,” Historical G
eography 44 (2016): 35.
Olga Petri, “At the bathhouse: municipal reform and the bathing commons in late imperial St. Petersburg,”
Journal of Historical Geography 51 (2016): 40-51. doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2015.11.004
Evans, “Mapping terra incognita,” 33.
Magazines
Jill Lepore, “The Man Who Broke the Music Business,”
New Yorker, April 27, 2015, 59.
Lepore, “The Man Who Broke the Music Business,” 60.
Websites
Toxic Legacies (website), Communicating with Future Generations, accessed April 15, 2018,
www.toxiclegacies.com.
Films
Natura Urbana: The Brachen of Berlin, directed by Matthew Gandy, 2017,
www.naturaurbana.org.
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch, directed by Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier, and Edward Burtynsky (Mercury Films, 2018)
GUIDELINES FOR NON-TEXTUAL ELEMENTS
Authors are welcome to include hyperlinks and media files to be embedded within the manuscript.
Images and maps
Art should not be placed directly in Word files but submitted separately in a .tif or .jpg format, sequentially numbered (Fig. 1, 2, etc.). Art files should be no less than 300 dpi with the smallest dimension measuring at least four inches (1,200 pixels). All lettering within figures should be no smaller than 6 pt and should be in a standard font.
Include captions in the Word file approximately where art is to be placed, or if a piece of art has no captions use a generic call-out instead (e.g., {Fig. 1 Here}). Note that art will not be placed exactly where it is called out in the Word file. When the journal is set the typesetter will place artwork according to design conventions as near the original placement as possible.
If using copyrighted artwork, the author must secure written permission for its reproduction in
Historical Geography, to be submitted to the Press in the event of publication.
AUTHORSHIP AND CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Historical Geography is committed to equity and ethics in scholarship. Where research collaboration and co-authorship are a consideration, we urge authors to consider appropriate standards for authorship inclusion and author order, such as those discussed in the
Committee on Publication Ethics Discussion Document. Authors should also identify relevant funding sources and declare any conflicts of interest.
