About the journal
Founded in 1952, Past & Present is widely acknowledged to be the liveliest and most stimulating historical journal in the English-speaking world …
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Viewpoint: Peasant Productivity and Welfare in The Middle Ages and Beyond
Driven by the quality of sources rather than their representativeness, the history of English agriculture has been written primarily from the perspective of well-documented large farms to the neglect of smallholders and cottagers who for centuries cultivated the greater part of the nation’s farmland but left scant records...
Viewpoint: Believing in Belief: Gibbon, Latour and the Social History of Religion
While in recent decades historians have engaged with anthropological debates over the nature of ‘religion’, they have tended still to take the key term ‘belief’ somewhat for granted. This article suggests that we have inherited an Enlightenment legacy of thought on ‘belief’ that tends to treat it as credulity when applied to the general masses...
Viewpoints
Past & Present's Viewpoints seek to provoke or advance debate, open up new questions, define the state or direction of a particular field, or shape trends in historiography at a more general level — always in a way that is comprehensible to non-specialists.
Content from Past & Present
Languages of History Virtual Issue
This virtual issue of Past & Present brings together work on the history of language from the journal’s archives, showing how viewing language as an object of historical enquiry can lead to new insights into a variety of historical questions and debates.
Flows of History Virtual Issue
What does it mean to write the history of water? In this virtual issue we set out to explore how articles published in Past & Present have addressed the topic of water through time.
Celebrating Issue 250: Special Virtual Issue
Celebrate the release of Past & Present's 250th issue by reading the special virtual issue to mark this important milestone.
The Past & Present Virtual Issue Archive
To continue Past & Present's initiative to highlight its extensive back catalogue, the journal publishes regular thematic virtual issues grouping together articles which are made freely available for a limited period.
The Past and Present Supplement Series
Supplement 16: Beyond Truth: Fiction and Disinformation in Early Modern Europe
Over the last few years, the phrase ‘fake news’ has become ubiquitous. Scholars and commentators alike have raised alarm over the spread of disinformation. Yet despite what this bleak picture may suggest, fake news is nothing new. Today’s versions may be culturally and technologically specific, but hoaxes, lies and fabrications have been around for as long as people have exchanged information in any shape or form, told stories, and generally talked and written to each other.
The Series
The Past & Present Supplement series was launched in 2006 to provide a forum for publishing the proceedings of Past and Present conferences and other symposia, and collections of essays reflective of the broad themes and ethos of the journal itself. One volume will appear every year, which will be sent out free to subscribers, but which can also be purchased by non-subscribers as a book. This will also be available on line and will be, like the journal, fully searchable.
The Past & Present Blog
For news and up-dates of interest to historians read the Past & Present Blog.
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The Past & Present Book Series
Past & Present has a long history of publishing books and collections of essays reflective of the broad themes and ethos of the journal itself. Transcending chronological and geographical boundaries, the purpose of the series is to publish high-quality, cutting-edge work that has an appeal outside the specialist area of the author.
