JGH receives many more submissions than it can publish. The first stage of the selection process takes place immediately after submission. Around half of all submissions are ‘desk rejected’ and not sent out for review. Desk rejection may happen for many reasons and often is not a reflection on the quality of the work, but rather its suitability for the journal. The relatively high desk rejection rate of JGH enables us and our peer reviewers to devote substantial time and effort to the submissions we decide to pursue.

The first stage of the selection process consists of an editorial check on suitability and quality. The suitability check examines whether the submission is sufficiently in line with JGH’s mission statement. It can also happen that we receive too many papers on a specific topic, which then forces us to be more selective than we would otherwise be. The quality check examines a range of aspects, but the most important criterion is innovation: Does the submission go beyond the historiographical state-of-the-art? Does it open up new analytical perspectives? Does it bring new evidence to a debate of world historical significance?

We appreciate that it can be tough to receive a desk rejection – it has happened to each of us! Such articles may well be a wonderful fit for other journals and we would very much encourage their authors to seek alternative publication forums. For practical reasons, however, we are unable to engage in extensive correspondence about rejection decisions.

JGH operates a double-anonymous peer-review model. For more information, please see the review process page.