new Historical perspectives

New Historical Perspectives (NHP) is the Society’s book series for early career scholars (within ten years of their doctorate), commissioned and edited by the Royal Historical Society, in association with University of London Press and the Institute of Historical Research.

What’s distinctive about New Historical Perspectives?

The NHP series provides extensive support and feedback for authors, many of whom are writing their first monograph having recently completed a History PhD.

Each author in the series receives substantial reports from peer reviewers and series editors; is assigned a contact and ‘mentor’ from the editorial board; and takes part in an Author Workshop to discuss a near complete book with invited specialists. Author Workshops are opportunities to discuss and develop a manuscript with expert readers before submission to the publisher.

Second, all NHP titles are published as free Open Access (OA) editions, eBooks, and in hard and paperback formats by University of London Press. Digital editions of each book increase discoverability and readership. The cost of publishing NHP volumes as Open Access is covered by the series partners, not the author or an author’s academic institution.

New and forthcoming titles in the series

Gender, Emotions and Power, 1750-2020 (November 2023), edited by Hannah Parker and Josh Doble constitutes a timely intervention into contemporary debates on emotions, gender, race and power. This collection considers how emotional expectations are established as gendered, racialised and class-based notions.

The volume explores the ways these expectations have been generated, stratified and maintained by institutions, societies, media and those with access to power.

Designed for Play: Children’s Playgrounds and the Politics of Urban Space, 1840–2010, by Jon Winder (published in July 2024) is the first empirically grounded historical account of the modern playground, drawing on the archival materials of social reformers, park superintendents, equipment manufacturers and architects in Britain and beyond to chart the playground’s journey from marginal obscurity to popular ubiquity.

Children’s playgrounds are commonly understood as the obvious place for children to play: safe, natural and out of the way. But these expectations hide a convoluted and overlooked history of children’s place in public space

Mapping the State. English Boundaries and the 1832 Reform Act, by Martin Spychal (September 2024), rethinks the 1832 Reform Act by demonstrating how boundary reform and the reconstruction of England’s electoral map by the 1831–32 boundary commission underpinned this turning point in the development of the British political nation.

Drawing from a significant new archival discovery—the working papers of the boundary commission—Mapping the State reassesses why and how the 1832 Reform Act passed, and its significance to the expansion of the modern British state (Published online and in print, Summer 2024).

Recent titles in the Series

Charlotte Berry, The Margins of Late Medieval London, 1430-1540 (February 2022)
Sarah Fox, Giving Birth in Eighteenth-Century England (April 2022)
Leo Shipp, The Poets Laureate of the Long Eighteenth Century, 1668–1813 (September 2022)
Stephen Mullen, The Glasgow Sugar Aristocracy: Scotland and Caribbean Slavery, 1775-1838 (November 2022)
Matthew Gerth, Anti-Communism in Britain During the Cold War. A Very British Witch Hunt (April 2023)

Edited collections in the Series

In addition to monographs, the series also publishes edited collections. NHP collections are collaborations between historians: edited and including chapters by early career scholars, along with essays from more senior historians.

Antonia Fitzpatrick and John Sabapathy eds., Individuals, Institutions and Medieval Scholasticism (May 2020)
Fiona McCall ed., Church and People in Interregnum Britain (August 2021)
Heidi Egginton and Zoe Thomas eds., Precarious Professionals. Gender, Identity and Social Change in Modern Britain (September 2021)
Alexandra Hughes-Johnson and Lyndsey Jenkins eds., The Politics of Women’s Suffrage. Local, National and international Perspectives (November 2021)
Peter Collinge and Louise Falcini eds., Providing for the Poor. The Old Poor Law, 1750–1834 (August 2022)

New Historical Perspectives began publishing in late 2019 and a full listing of titles in the series is available from the University of London Press and via JSTOR Open Access Books.

Submitting a proposal

The Series Editors and Editorial Board welcome proposals for new NHP titles via the NHP book proposal form. Proposals may include full-size monographs and edited collections of up to 100,000 words. The NHP series also publishes shorter monographs (50-60,000 words) where this is an appropriate length for a topic. Completed proposal forms should be submitted to the University of London Press Publisher, Dr Emma Gallon: emma.gallon@sas.ac.uk.

Many NHP authors are publishing their first book, and editorial mentoring and Author Workshops are designed to help with the transition from PhD to monograph. Equally, the Series Editors welcome proposals for second books from authors within 10 years of completing their doctorates.

Enquiries about the series

For general enquiries, please email Dr Emma Gallon, Publisher, at University of London Press: emma.gallon@sas.ac.uk.

If you wish to contact the Series’ co-editors directly, please email Professor Elizabeth Hurren (eh140@leicester.ac.uk) or Dr Sarah Longair (slongair@lincoln.ac.uk).

Precarious Professionals: New Historical Perspectives on Gender & Professional Identity in Modern Britain

PLEASE NOTE: this event has been postponed and will now take place later in the year, date tbc

Book Launch and Panel Discussion

14.00 GMT, Tuesday 22 March 2022, Live online via Zoom

Published in October 2021, Precarious Professionals is an edited collection of essays which use gender to explore a range of professional careers, from those of pioneering women lawyers and scientists to ballet dancers, secretaries, historians, and social researchers.

The book reveals how professional identities could flourish on the margins of the traditional professions, with far-reaching implications for the study of power, privilege, and expertise in 19th and 20th century Britain.

Precarious Professionals appears in the RHS ‘New Historical Perspectives’ series and is is now available free, Open Access, to read ahead of the event.

Contributors to the panel

Professor Christina de Bellaigue (University of Oxford)
Dr Laura Carter (Université de Paris / LARCA)
Professor Leslie Howsam (University of Windsor / Ryerson University)
Dr Claire G. Jones (University of Liverpool)
Professor Helen McCarthy (University of Cambridge)
Professor Susan Pedersen (Columbia University)
Dr Laura Quinton (New York University)
Professor Emma Griffin (RHS President and University of East Anglia) (chair)

This event brings together seven of the book’s contributors to discuss the relationship between gender and professional identities in historical perspective, and to reflect on researching and writing histories of professional work in precarious times.

About our panel

Christina de Bellaigue is Associate Professor of History at Oxford and a Fellow of Exeter College. She is a social and cultural historian of nineteenth century France and Britain, with research interests in the history of reading and of education, and of childhood and adolescence. Christina’s current project concerns middle class family strategies and social mobility. Her publications include Home Education in Historical Perspective (2016) and Educating Women: Schooling and Identity in England and France, 1800–1867 (2007).

Laura Carter is Lecturer in British History at the Université de Paris, LARCA, CNRS, F-75013 Paris, France. She has published articles on popular history, education, and social change in twentieth-century Britain in the journals Cultural and Social History, History Workshop Journal, and Twentieth Century British History. Her first book, Histories of Everyday Life: The Making of Popular Social History in Britain, 1918-1979, was published by Oxford University Press in the Past & Present book series in 2021.

Leslie Howsam is Emerita Distinguished University Professor at the University of Windsor (Canada) and Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Digital Humanities at Ryerson University. She is editor of the 2015 Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book and author of Old Books and New Histories: An Orientation to Studies in Book & Print Culture (Toronto University Press, 2006).

Claire G. Jones is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Liverpool. Her research interests focus on the cultural and social history of science, from the late-eighteenth century through to the early-twentieth, with special emphasis on femininity, masculinity, inclusion and representation. She has published widely in these areas and co-edited the Palgrave Handbook of Women and Science (2022).

Helen McCarthy is Professor of Modern and Contemporary British History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St John’s College. She is a historian of modern Britain and author of three books: The British People and the League of Nations (Manchester University Press, 2011); Women of the World: The Rise of the Female Diplomat (Bloomsbury, 2014); and Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood (Bloomsbury, 2020).

Susan Pedersen is Gouverneur Morris Professor of British History at Columbia University, where she teaches British and International History. Her most recent book is The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire (Oxford, 2015). She is now writing a book about marriage and politics in the Balfour family. She writes regularly for the London Review of Books.

Laura Quinton is a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at New York University and a Resident Fellow at The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU. Her current book project, Ballet Imperial: Dance and the New British Empire, explores the unexpected entanglements of ballet and British politics in the twentieth century. Her writing has appeared in The Historical Journal, Twentieth Century British History, and the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism.

Emma Griffin is President of the Royal Historical Society and Professor of Modern British History at the University of East Anglia.

HEADER IMAGE, clockwise from top left: politician, Mary Agnes Hamilton, at her desk in Carlton House Terrace, c.1948; sociologist Viola Klein, 1965; historian Dame Lillian Penson running her seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, London, 1957; Marie Stopes in her laboratory, Manchester, c.1904–6; mathematician and engineer, Hertha Ayrton, in her Laboratory; lawyer and political reformer, Eliza Orme, 1889.

RHS Lecture and Events: Full Programme for 2022 >

New Historical Perspectives passes 100,000 book downloads

The Royal Historical Society’s book series, New Historical Perspectives, publishes monographs and edited collections by early career historians within 10 years of a PhD.

Launched in late 2019, 18 titles are now available or forthcoming, with University of London Press. Earlier this month, the series reached its 100,000 book download.

All books in the series are available in paperback print and free Open Access, funded by NHP’s partners: the Society, the Institute of Historical Research and University of London Press. Contracted authors receive mentoring when writing their books and are offered an author workshop, with subject specialists, prior to submission of the final manuscript.

Recent titles in the series include Matthew Gerth’s Anti-Communism in Britain During the Early Cold War, A Very British Witch Hunt, and Hannah Parker and Josh Doble’s edited collection, Gender, Emotions and Power, 1750–2020.

Coming soon is Jon Winder’s monograph, Designed for Play: Children’s Playgrounds and the Politics of Urban Space, 1840–2010. Designed for Play is an original and accessible contribution to modern British history, urban and environmental history, and histories and geographies of childhood.

Publications

The Royal Historical Society has a long and proud tradition of publishing across a wide range of subjects and formats.

Our journal: Transactions

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (TRHS) is the flagship journal of the RHS and one of the UK’s best known historical journals. Transactions publishes papers by senior and early career historians alike, covering all periods and a wide range of subject and geographical areas.

Transactions welcomes submissions from scholars worldwide. Transactions is published for the RHS by Cambridge University Press via FirstView and in print.

Our book series: New Historical Perspectives

Our New Historical Perspectives (NHP) series, launched in 2016, is an innovative Open Access book series for Early Career Researchers. NHP is a partnership between the Society, the Institute of Historical Research and University of London Press. The series includes monographs and edited collections, with OA author publishing charges covered by the RHS and IHR.

New Historical Perspectives titles appear on JSTOR’s OA books platform, increasing discoverability and the option to access and share a book at the chapter level.

Scholarly editions: Camden Series

The Camden Series is one of the most prestigious and important collections of primary source material relating to British History, including the British empire and Britons’ influence overseas.

Published in association with Cambridge University Press, the Series offers 380 scholarly editions of primary sources, available in print and online. Camden volumes make primary materials, from the early medieval to late modern periods, readily available for researchers.

Research and teaching: Bibliography of British and Irish History

With a fully searchable database of over 640,000 records, the Society’s online Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) is the most comprehensive guide available to British and Irish history. The Bibliography includes records of books, articles, chapters and editions, and is updated with 10,000 new titles each year.

Published in association with the Institute of Historical Research and Brepols, BBIH is an essential resource for researching and teaching British and Irish past.

New and forthcoming titles in the Society’s Open Access book series

Now available, in print and online, Gender, Emotions and Power, 1750–2020 — edited by Hannah Parker and Josh Dyble — is the latest title in the Royal Historical Society’s New Historical Perspectives book series. This new collection offers a timely intervention into contemporary debates on emotions, gender, race and power by asking: ‘how are emotional expectations established as gendered, racialised and class-based notions’?

Chronologically and geographically broad, the essays cover settler colonies in southern Africa, post-unification Italy, Maoist China, the Soviet Union and British Raj, among others. Collectively the essays consider how emotional expectations have been generated, stratified and maintained by institutions, societies, media and those with access to power.

Gender, Emotions and Power, 1750–2020 is the 17th title in the Society’s New Historical Perspectives series for early career historians within 10 years of completing a PhD at a UK or Irish university. All titles are published online as Open Access editions and in paperback print with Open Access fees covered by the series partners: the Royal Historical Society, Institute of Historical Research and University of London Press. For more on the series, and how to submit a proposal, please see here.

Forthcoming titles in the series, available in 2024, include Martin Sypchal’s Mapping the State. English Boundaries and the 1832 Reform Act and Rachel E. Johnson’s Women’s Voices and Historical Silences in South Africa. Young Women and Youth Activism in the Anti-Apartheid Struggle.

Full online access to all of the titles is available via University of London Press.

Apply for Postgraduate Membership

Closing date for next application round:

Monday 27 May 2024

The Postgraduate Membership is a new category for the RHS, launched in November 2021. It is reserved for those studying History, or a cognate subject, at a higher level (from Masters to PhD) in a UK or overseas institution. Postgraduate Members join a group of researchers, many of whom will seek to work in a field relating to History. In creating this new category of membership, the Society recognises the particular experience of higher degree students. The Postgraduate Membership seeks to provide tailored support, for example in training events and grants, to assist students during a degree and immediately afterwards.

Postgraduate Membership is linked to student status and may run for as long as the member is registered for a postgraduate degree and one additional year thereafter.

From November 2021, the Society also offers an Associate Fellowship for historians who are no longer studying for a further degree but whose career stage and or contribution to history. Some Associate Fellows are historians working in Higher Education who have not yet reached the extent of publications, or equivalent, required to join the full Fellowship. Others contribute to History through their work in sectors such as heritage and museums, libraries and archives, teaching, publishing and broadcasting, or personal research.

These new membership categories – of Associate Fellowship and Postgraduate Membership – replace the previous category of Early Career Membership. Read more about these two new ways to belong to the Society. From August 2022 we are extending the benefits available to Postgraduate Members of the Society (see below).

To apply for the RHS Postgraduate Membership please use the Society’s Applications Portal, and select your chosen membership category.

Benefits of Postgraduate Membership

Online access to the current issue and entire searchable back archive of Transactions of the Royal Historical Society – from the journal’s foundation in 1872 to the early 2022.
Online access to all 380 volumes of the Society’s Camden Series of primary source material, including the latest titles published in 2021 and 2022. Since 1838, the Camden Series has made primary records available in accessible scholarly editions, compiled and introduced by specialist historians. The Series is especially strong in material relating to British history, including the British Empire and Britons’ influence overseas.
All other RHS publications offered at a substantial discount: includes the Bibliography of British and Irish History, Camden Series volumes and New Historical Perspectives print volumes.
30% discount on all academic books (print only) published by Cambridge University Press.
30% discount on purchases of print copies of the Society’s New Historical Perspectives book series, offering monographs and essay collections, and produced in association with the Institute of Historical Research and University of London Press.
30% discount on History titles published by Oxford University Press.
Receipt of the weekly ‘RHS News Circular’ (this example, August 2023): a regular update on RHS activities, plus listings of events / calls for papers from other UK historical societies and research networks.
Eligibility to apply for RHS grants and funded fellowships.
Eligible for RHS training and career development events / workshops reserved for Fellows and members.
Eligible to apply for the Society’s Research Funding programmes (including Scholarships and Fellowships) available to historians at all career stages.
Access to the RHS Archive and Library collections, and RHS Library rooms, at University College London (UCL).
Become part of a thriving international community of historians, of all kinds and from many backgrounds.

Annual Subscription

From November 2021, annual subscription rates for Postgraduate Members, payable on appointment, are:

Postgraduates, UK-based and International: £20 pa
Postgraduates, Hardship Rate: £10.00 pa (online access to Transactions only)

The RHS subscription year runs July to June with renewals due on 1 July of each year.

The Postgraduate Hardship Rate is available to unemployed and low income/wage members (self-defined) and includes unfunded/self-funded students.

How to Apply

Prior to making your application, please consult the FAQs relating to Postgraduate Membership.

To apply for the RHS Postgraduate Membership please use the Society’s Applications Portal, and select your chosen membership category.

Applications to join the RHS are welcome through the year. Dates for applications in 2024 are as follows: 27 May 2024, 12 August 2024 and 14 October 2024.

Rejoining the Society as a Postgraduate Member

If your Postgraduate Membership has lapsed / has been cancelled, and you would like to re-join the Society, please contact our Membership department at membership@royalhistsoc.org in the first instance. We will be glad to assist you.

All applications are considered by our Membership Committee which meets five times a year. You can expect to hear the outcome approximately eight weeks after the closing date for your application. Incomplete applications will be held on file until we have received all the necessary information.

All enquiries about applying for election to the Fellowship should be addressed to the RHS office: membership@royalhistsoc.org.

RHS Library & Archive

The Royal Historical Society’s Library and Archive provide an important service to the historical community, and make available a wide range of primary and secondary resources for research.

The Society’s Library holds more than a thousand works of historical scholarship published from the sixteenth century to the present day. The RHS Archive contains important collections of papers relating to historians and the development of the historical profession, as well as to the work, and membership, of the Society itself.

The Royal Historical Society Library

The Society’s Library has two reading rooms and is located within the main library of University College London, next to the RHS Office and Council Chamber. RHS Fellows and Members are welcome to visit the Society’s Library, and also to use the main UCL History collection as a benefit of membership.

The Library holds more than 1000 secondary works of historical scholarship on open shelves. The collection comprises antiquarian titles, publications of UK record and local history societies, and reference works.

Also available are monographs published by the RHS (including the ‘Studies in History’ and ‘New Historical Perspectives’ series); and complete sets of the Society’s journal, Transactions (1872-2021) and the Camden Series of primary sources (1838-2021).

The Library also maintains an online listing of UK and Irish historical and record societies providing contacts for research.

More on the Royal Historical Society’s Library and collections.

The Royal Historical Society Archive

The Society’s Archive includes a range of named collections, principally of historians and the development of the historical profession in the nineteenth and twentieth century. The archive also contains extensive papers relating the governance and activities of the Society, from the 1860s to the 2010s.

The Society’s largest collection is that of the historian, editor and government adviser, George W. Prothero (1848-1922), who was Professor of History at Edinburgh, from 1894, and President of the Royal Historical Society between 1901 and 1905.

Other important collections include the papers of the Camden Society (1838-1897); of the Tudor historian Sir Geoffrey Elton (1922-1994), relating to his publications and literary estate; and of the governance, membership, events and activities of the Royal Historical Society, from 1868 to the 2010s.

In 2022 the Society published new catalogues for these major collection areas, with further details in the Archive section of the RHS website.

More on the Royal Historical Society Archive and its collections.

Access to the Library and Archive

Both the Library and Archives are housed at the Society’s offices in the main library of University College London, Gower Street.

RHS Fellows and Members are welcome to use the History collections, including those of wider UCL, as a benefit of membership.

If you wish to visit the RHS Library please make an appointment via administration@royalhistsoc.org.