Review Process

Fair, unbiased, competent, rigorous, and constructive peer review is critical to maintaining the standards of our publications. Peer review is a voluntary activity carried out by scholars as a means of contributing to the academic fields we cover.
History and the World uses doubleblind peer review (the authors do not know the identity of the reviewers, and the reviewers do not know the identity of the authors at the time of the review) and requires a minimum of two independent peer reviewers, representing different locations and not employed at the institution where the author is affiliated, to review manuscript of article for consideration in the journal. 

Rules of the Peer Review Process

1. We invite reviewers on the basis of their competence and professional expertise. The reviewers are asked to provide a fair, honest, and respectful assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript, containing possible suggestions for further work which the editors will forward to the author ensuring that anonymity is maintained.

2. We make every effort to avoid selecting reviewers who may have competing interests that might prevent them from providing a fair and unbiased opinion.

3. We respect the confidentiality of the peer review process. The manuscripts are fully anonymized before reviewing; at all stages of the review process the author and reviewers remain anonymous, their identity is strictly confidential to members of the editorial team.

4. We provide reviewers with substantive and ethical reviewing principles (based on COPE recommendations), which they accept by agreeing to perform the review. The editorial team commits to recognize warning signs of fraudulent or manipulated peer review or peer reviewer’s unauthorized use of manuscripts for their own purposes.

5. The editors of History and the World who submit their texts to the journal are completely excluded from all stages of the review process.

Stages of the Review Process

1. Internal reviewing and preliminary selection of submitted manuscripts by the editorial team, within 5 weeks after submission (manuscripts may be desk rejected, sent back to the author for correction or further elaboration, or qualified for peer review).

2. Inviting qualified peer reviewers in line with ethics.

3. Double blind peer reviewing process (5 weeks or longer, if required). The reviewers assess the manuscripts in writing. A review must include an overall recommendation to: accept manuscript for publication, accept with minor or major revisions, or reject it.

4. Additional review in case of diverging recommendations.

5. The final decision in this regard is taken by the Editor-in-Chief.

Cooperating Reviewers