Journal of Global History


The Journal of Global History is an academic history journal dedicated to the study of comparative, world, and global history. Established in 2006, the JGH is printed and published online by Cambridge University Press. The goal of the journal is to discuss interdisciplinary topics and new methodological modes of analysis concerning the study of the past over time and space.
The current editors-in-chief of the journal are William Gervase Clarence-Smith, SOAS, University of London and Ewout Frankema, Wageningen University.

History

Early ideas for a journal of global history began at the Institute of Historical Research when the Director Patrick K. O'Brien, professor of global history, created a new seminar in 1990. And in 2003, the Global Economic History Network connected 49 historians to discuss the history of globalization. A subsequent graduate degree was created at the London School of Economics that focused on "meta-narratives in history", focusing on environments, geopolitics, religions, cultures, economies, gender, ideas, and science. Five years after the degree was launched, the London School of Economics and Cambridge University Press co-sponsored The Journal of Global History. The JGH featured an essay by Professor O'Brien entitled "Historiographical traditions and modern imperatives for the restoration of global history". Since then, the journal has grown significantly and spearheaded a new movement of global history in the academic discipline. O'Brien notes that the two fundamentals of studying the world are connections and comparisons. The JGH aims to address the main problems of studying global change over time, transcending standard regional boundaries.
Popular topics for the journal include globalization, comparative history, and cross-border history. Articles are meant to engage in interdisciplinary debates among historians sociologists, economists, and political scientists, as well as specialists in non-written histories, such as geographers, archaeologists, and biologists.
Alongside the journal's founding, global history thus began to emerge as a discipline after the publication of Pamela Kyle Crossley's What is Global History? and Sebastian Conrad's What is Global History?. The journal has also been strongly influenced by the publication of Kenneth Pomeranz' The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy.

Indexing

It is indexed by Index Islamicus, Academic Search Premier, RePEC and the European Reference Index for the Humanities and Social Sciences. The current impact factor of the journal is 0.625 according to Thomson Reuters, making the journal the fourth most cited history journal in the world.