International Review of Social History

The International Review of Social History (IRSH) is one of the leading journals in the field of social history, more in particular the history of work, workers, and labour relations, defined in the broadest possible sense, including workers’ struggles, organizations, and associated social, cultural, and political movements, both in the modern and the early modern periods, and across periods.

The IRSH aims to be truly global in scope and stresses the need for a comparative perspective that acknowledges the interrelationship of historical change and the phenomena and factors underlying that change. We welcome submissions from all over the world that deal with the social history of work, workers, and labour relations, explored on a local, regional, national, or transnational level, but always with an eye to how they contribute to a better understanding of what constitutes global labour history.

Areas covered include the life and work of slaves, wage labourers, artisans, peasants, and the self-employed; related issues of class, gender, age, and race and ethnicity; social, cultural, and political movements, including the intellectual ideas that played a part in those movements; citizenship; theoretical and methodological issues; and the environment and ecology in relation to the social.

Submissions that fall within this range of themes and topics in the field of social history of work and workers are welcomed, particularly those providing a comparative, transnational, or transcontinental perspective.

The journal is issued by the International Institute of Social History (IISH), and published by Cambridge University Press. Each year, three regular issues appear, in April, August, and December, while an additional Special Issue of commissioned essays on a current topic is also published annually, in December. IRSH aims to publish some twenty-five articles per year in its four issues and to cover a major part of the books published in the fields of social and labour history in its book reviews section.

IISH | IRSH | Volume 62 - Part 2 - August 2017 | IISH / Cambridge Press

IRSH includes

  • Authoritative research articles
  • Special Themes
  • Suggestions and debates: topical essays open for discussion
  • Review essays
  • Book reviews, covering recently published books of interest to social historians
  • Annual Special Issue compiled by guest editors and addressing a theme of immediate interest

About IRSH

  • The International Review of Social History is published for the IISH by Cambridge University Press.
  • Full text articles published in IRSH are available online to subscribers at CambridgeCore.
  • IRSH volumes from 1956 onwards are indexed in the Labour History Serials Service.
  • View tables of content of all volumes, with articles summaries and full text of bibliography, for all volumes from 1992 onwards.
  • For subscriptions, contact Cambridge University Press.