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, and supported by a subvention from the Economic History Society.
The NHP series launched in 2020 and has since published 27 volumes (to October 2026), all of which are available free Open Access and in paperback print editions.
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.
For more on the series, please see the following guidelines for prospective authors (April 2026).
New and recent titles in the series (2025-26)
Details of all titles in the New Historical Perspectives series are available here. Please see below for recent and forthcoming volumes.
Prostitution, Repentance and Social Welfare in Renaissance Florence. The Monastery of Sant’Elisabetta delle Convertite, by Gillian Jack (forthcoming, 15 October 2026)
From the fourteenth century, prostitutes in Florence were encouraged to leave their profession and spend their lives in repentance at the monastery of Sant’Elisabetta delle Convertite.
As the longest enduring monastery for repentant prostitutes, Sant’Elisabetta is an integral part of the history of nuns and of prostitution in the medieval and early modern periods, and had an important place in municipal responses to social welfare and civic morality.
Prostitution, Repentance and Social Welfare in Renaissance Florence is the first book-length study to put Sant’Elisabetta into its full historical context. It offers valuable insights into the relationship between the Florentine state and monastic institutions, public policy, welfare and women in the long Renaissance.
Organised Militarism in Interwar Britain. The Navy League and the Air League of the British Empire, by Rowan Thompson (published
in April 2026)
Organised Militarism is the first full-length study of militarism and militaristic associational culture in interwar Britain. It argues that militarism was able to survive the 1914–1918 conflict, despite the competing rise of liberal internationalism, pacifism and anti-war sentiment.
Drawing on extensive archival research, the book explains how the interwar Air League and Navy League mobilised broad public and political support.
In doing so, Organised Militarism, demonstrates that martial and militaristic sentiment remained an important part of mainstream British political culture, despite the ravages of war.
Forging Fraternity in Late Medieval Society. The Palmers’ Guild of Ludlow, by Rachael Harkes (published in November 2025)
Forging Fraternity in Late Medieval Society is an ambitious and innovative study of the social, political and religious histories of medieval England and Wales. Using the Palmers’ Guild of Ludlow as a prism, Rachael Harkes considers the almost ubiquitous membership of religious guilds in both urban and rural society on the eve of the Reformation.
Forging Fraternity reconceptualises guild membership as both a structure for and mirror of complex social relations and identities, demonstrating with ingenuity how medieval sources can be put to use in unconventional ways.
Atlantic Isles: Travel and Identity in the British and Irish West, 1880–1940, by Gareth Roddy (published in October 2025)
In Atlantic Isles, Gareth Roddy examines the cultural and political prominence of the ‘westward gaze’, which flourished in late-nineteenth century Britain and Ireland. From Cornish cliffs and Welsh mountains to Hebridean islands and the Connemara highlands, the west was an imagined geography that transcended the national territories of these isles.
Atlantic Isles reveals that western landscapes were especially powerful spaces of modern enchantment, where stories of sunken lands and mythical islands produced a sense of mystery and wonder in a supposedly disenchanted world.
Waterscapes: Reservoirs, Environment and Identity in Modern England and Wales, by Andrew McTominey (published in August 2025)
The building of reservoirs in England and Wales was key to urban growth across the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, with the management of waterworks projects closely tied to the social and economic fortunes of rural areas, as well as the treatment of urban populations.
Drawing on methods from environmental history, cultural history and historical geography, Waterscapes explores the multiple and long-term impacts of reservoir construction and management in rural England and Wales from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.
Reading, Gender and Identity in Seventeenth-Century England, by Hannah Jeans (published in April 2025)
This ambitious and interdisciplinary book redraws the history of early modern Englishwomen’s reading, exploring the connections between gender, reading habits and genre throughout the seventeenth century. It challenges historiographical narratives about reading that have privileged male experience, and highlights the multiplicity and complexity of women’s reading practices, focusing on the ways in which they used reading in constructing their gender identity.
Drawing on archival sources across a wide range of writing types, Hannah Jeans offers a more complete picture of women’s reading experiences, ultimately questioning the accepted notion of ‘the woman reader’ itself.
Voice, Silence and Gender in South Africa’s Anti-Apartheid Struggle. The Shadow of a Young Woman, by Rachel E. Johnson (published in March 2025).
This new monograph offers an unconventional biography of Mary Masabata Loate: a young woman as a shadow within the story of South Africa’s anti-apartheid liberation struggle.
Between 1976 and 1986, Masabata Loate appears in court records and newspaper articles as a school student activist, a beauty queen, a terrorism suspect, a political prisoner and finally a murder victim.
While lacking lacked the materials to write a conventional life, this volume recreates ‘a shadow biography’ of Masabata Loate.
Submitting a proposal
The Series Editors and Editorial Board welcome proposals for new NHP titles via the NHP book proposal form. Applications are invited from authors, within 10 years of completing their PhD from a UK or Irish university and who are looking to publish their first book.
Further details about the series and author eligibility are available in our Proposal Guidelines.
Enquiries about the series
For general enquiries, please email Dr Emma Gallon, Publisher, at University of London Press: [email protected].
If you wish to contact the Series’ co-editors directly, please email Professor Elizabeth Hurren ([email protected]) or Dr Sarah Longair ([email protected]).