PROPOSAL TYPE
Roundtable
SEEKING
- Seeking Additional Presenters
- Seeking Specific Expertise
RELATED TOPICS
- Public Engagement
- Reflections on the Field
ABSTRACT
As self-publishing becomes easier and more widely accepted, more and more small museums, historical societies and individual historians are moving away from publishing their local histories through traditional presses and are, instead, DIYing their books or working with small presses or non-academic publishers. How do we, as a field, feel about the increase in non-peer-reviewed popular history books? Is it bringing more voices to the table or is it devaluing traditional publishers?
DESCRIPTION
I proposed a session on non-academic publishing to the AASLH conference a few years ago and was rejected because the committee was “concerned about a publishing process that does not include peer review.” So this year, I want to open up the topic to discussion: How do we feel about non-peer-reviewed history publishing?
I’d like to put together a roundtable discussion on the topic. I’d like to hear from historians (and non-historians) that have self-published history books that would not have been picked up by a traditional publisher. And I’d like to hear from folks who believe that the peer review process weeds out bad writing and bad history.
If you have a direct offer of assistance, sensitive criticism, or wish to pass along someone’s contact information confidentially, please get in contact directly:
Heather Cole, Independent, [email protected]
All feedback and offers of assistance should be sent by November 15, 2025. If you have general ideas or feedback to share, please feel free to use the comments feature below.
Hi Heather, I wonder if you might consider expanding this beyond books to talk about historians publishing in non-peer-reviewed outlets more generally and what is gained and lost. As a former academic historian who published a book with a university press, and now an editor of a member magazine for a nonprofit history organization, I think that missing elements in this discussion might be fact-checking and non-blinded reviews, both of which are a part of publishing more generally but largely absent from academic publishing. The examples I’m thinking of here aren’t so much public historians, but folks like Heather Ann Thompson, who has published with academic and non-academic presses and in a variety of popular outlets, or someone like Daniel Immerwahr or Jill Lepore, who write/wrote for the New Yorker regularly—what does it means as discipline that we’re holding book publishing sacrosanct in particular ways, but aren’t as concerned about peer review when it comes to publishing in other venues that are more widely disseminated to audiences who have less professional context for evaluating evidence and argument. In short—I think this is an important conversation and one where a broader lens on publishing as a whole might be instructive?