Announcement

It is a great pleasure to announce the first volume of the new open access journal “histories” which will promote historical scholarship with a fresh approach and a robust infrastructure. This is our ambition, and we will try hard to realize it. History means taking changes and continuities over time seriously. The title of the journal “histories” reveals that we have the courage not to be specialized from the onset in a particular historical field and period. Instead, we remain open to a large diversity of subjects, each one to be treated in a professional scholarly way. The methodological standard is assured by an efficient peer reviewing process, handled by the Editorial office and supervised by the Editorial Board.

The journal has been conceived and launched by MDPI Publishers, a pioneering digital academic publisher. MDPI headquarters in Switzerland, and the journals are produced in a network of offices, located in various European and Asian cities. In 2020, MDPI assigned Mila Marinkovic in the Belgrade office as a Managing Editor for “histories”. She has earned her master degrees both in philosophy and economic communication, and is an experienced digital editor. In a relatively short time, in spite of the tragic COVID-19 pandemic, she succeeded in recruiting an Editorial Board with distinguished members on six continents and with a great variety in specialization and background.

In order to take advantage of that know-how for the launch of “histories” we asked the Board Members to make a short “case” for the type of historical research of their personal liking. Together they form the first part of this volume. Jon Mathieu (Switzerland), the author of the present lines, made a start with A Case for Global Microhistory. Raquel Gil Montero (Argentina) then contributed A Case for the History of Ordinary Lives. Afterwards we were joined by Brett Bowden (Australia), Maurizio Peleggi (Singapore), and Karol Lucken (USA), who made their cases respectively for the history of ideas, for comparative history, and for the history of criminology and criminal justice. We plan to return to this type of editorial, a sort of scholarly op-ed, in the next term (2022-23).

An important format of our journal will be special issues, that is: collections of research articles on particular historical subjects proposed and organized by guest editors. At this very moment, there are already six special issues of “histories” in the making. The first one is entitled History from Scratch—Voices across the Planet. The idea should reflect the open, brainstorming moment at the start of a new, truly international journal. It gives the possibility to imagine historical scholarship as we would wish it to be. Examples of possible issues are: the purpose of doing history; the role of particular models, theories, and ideologies; the usefulness or uselessness of interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary approaches. The present volume of “histories” offers three articles under this heading, the complete special issue will be released soon.

We are happy about the successful launch of “histories”, and I would like to thank all the persons who actively supported our endeavor, and the readers who took an interest in our publications. Together, this network of people and ideas will help satisfying our scholarly curiosity and enrich our lives, professional and private.