Elements in History and Contemporary Society is a new publishing series from the Royal Historical Society, launched in November 2024.
‘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 hard and paperback print editions by Cambridge University Press. Each book in this Elements Series will appear free, Open Access on Cambridge Core, with no charge to the author and all costs covered by the Royal Historical Society.
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 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 use, understanding and value and be open to discussion in any culture or region worldwide. Similarly, the series editors 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 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 century and the twentieth century.
Submitting a proposal to the series
The Series Editors welcome proposals for new titles for ‘Elements in History and Contemporary Society’.
Please complete the following form if you wish to submit a volume to the series for editorial consideration, providing full details of your proposed volume. Author proposal form for Elements in History and Contemporary Society.
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.
About Cambridge Elements
Cambridge Elements 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 can be published in just 12 weeks and be 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.