Elements in History and Contemporary Society is a new publishing series from the Royal Historical Society, launched in January 2025.
‘Elements in History and Contemporary Society’ explores the value, use, discourse, and impact of history in contemporary society and culture. It draws attention to the roles played by a variety of institutions and individuals in the making and use of historical knowledge.
The series is part of Cambridge Elements, a set of short monographs (20,000 to 30,000 words max), published online and in hard and paperback print editions by Cambridge University Press.
Each book in this new Elements Series will also appear free, Open Access on Cambridge Core, with no charge to the author. all costs for Open Access publication are covered by the Royal Historical Society.
As befits a series dedicated to history and contemporary society, final titles will be published swiftly (within 12 weeks of acceptance of the final manuscript) by Cambridge University Press.
Our Series Editors now invite proposals for titles in the series. Submissions must be via the Author Proposal Form for Elements in History and Contemporary Society, and sent to rhs.elements@royalhistsoc.org.
About the series
‘Elements in History and Contemporary Society’ covers a wide range of topics across geographical regions and historical periods, while addressing the following four principal themes:
- Uses of the past in contemporary politics, ideology, or public policy
- Contemporary institutions of historical knowledge
- New technologies and historical knowledge
- Memory, mass culture, and public opinion
Contributions to the series address questions of the use, understanding and value of history in contemporary society, and be open to discussion in any culture or region worldwide. Similarly, the Series Editors also encourage contributions from those working in sectors beyond Higher Education (including heritage, public policy, politics, teaching, the media, and community history), where discussions of the value and application of historical knowledge are especially prominent.
The series is edited for the Royal Historical Society by Professor Richard Toye (University of Exeter) and Dr Vivienne Xiangwei Guo (King’s College London).
Richard is is Professor of Modern History at the University of Exeter, UK. He specialises in the study of Britain’s role within a global and imperial context, from the late nineteenth century to the present day.
Vivienne is historian of modern China at King’s College London, UK. Her research focuses on the intellectual, political, and cultural history of modern China, particularly the history of China’s intellectual elites in the late nineteenth and twentieth century.
Submitting a proposal to the series
The Series Editors warmly welcome proposals for new titles for ‘Elements in History and Contemporary Society’.
If you wish to propose a title to the series, please complete the following Author Proposal Form for Elements in History and Contemporary Society. Please note that Elements in this series are limited to 30,000 words, including prelims and references.
Completed proposals may be submitted to the Series Editors via: rhs.elements@royalhistsoc.org.
Please also use this email if you have questions about a proposal before submission.
Forthcoming titles recently contracted in the series
- Catriona Pennell, Anxiety of Forgetting
- Daniel Curtis, The Impact of Epidemics on Women: A Long-Run History
- Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre, Using History, Selling Wine
- Fearghus Roulston, Time, Closure and the Troubles in Northern Ireland
- Helen Roche, ‘Gaming’ History? Digital and Analogue Games as Contemporary Historical Sources
- Stephanie Decker and Amon Barros, Decolonising Business History
The Society is very grateful to the Scouloudi Foundation for its generous support in funding Open Access publication of one of the first titles in the series.
About Cambridge Elements
Cambridge Elements, from Cambridge University Press, is a publishing model that provides an outlet for world-class research and writing that sits outside the traditional formats of book or journal article.
Cambridge Elements are published in just 12 weeks and made available as digital collections to institutional libraries and to individuals as e-books and in print. They can also be regularly updated to provide a dynamic reference resource for graduate students, researchers, and practitioners.
The full list of Elements series for History, including the RHS series, ‘Elements in History and Contemporary Society’, is available here. Further information for potential authors, for all Elements series, is available here from CUP.