--- name: past-and-present description: Use when targeting Past & Present or deciding whether a social, economic, or cultural history manuscript fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, its problem-driven "big question" argument bar, primary-source and historiographical expectations, Chicago house style and double-blind norms, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics. --- # Past & Present (past-and-present) ## Journal positioning Past & Present, published by Oxford University Press for the Past and Present Society, is a flagship of social, economic, and cultural history with a defining **problem-driven ethos**: it favors articles built around a "big question" — a genuine historical problem whose resolution speaks to processes of social change, power, and structure — rather than a self-contained narrative or an additive case study. Its house tradition is comparative, conceptually ambitious, and willing to range across periods and societies when the question demands it; what unites the journal is the conviction that a particular episode should illuminate something broadly significant about how societies work and change. A meticulous local study that never frames its larger stake is a poor fit, however well-sourced. This skill is a **fit / venue-selection / re-framing** aid. It does not replace the journal's current submission guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live Past & Present author instructions and style guide. ## When to trigger - The author names Past & Present for a social, economic, or cultural history manuscript and wants a fit/framing check. - A well-sourced local or specialist study must be re-framed around a larger historical problem and its comparative significance. - The author is choosing between Past & Present and a generalist venue (AHR) or a period/area-specialist journal. - The author needs the journal's problem-driven argument bar and desk-reject heuristics. ## Scope & topic fit - Social history of class, community, labor, popular politics, protest, and the structures of everyday power. - Economic history treated as social process — markets, property, subsistence, inequality — when the stake is interpretive rather than purely quantitative. - Cultural history of belief, ritual, mentalities, and the symbolic order, read for what it reveals about social relations. - Comparative and connective history across regions or periods when the comparison drives the argument rather than decorating it. - Studies of social change — transitions, crises, long-run transformations — that recast a received explanatory model. - Work that puts a rich body of sources to conceptual work on a defined historical problem, not findings reported for their own sake. ## Method & evidence bar - The contribution is an **original argument organized around a real historical problem**; name the question and why its answer matters beyond the case. - Primary-source command is deep and critically handled — archival, quantitative, or cultural evidence read against its silences, not merely catalogued. - Historiographical positioning is explicit: which interpretive debate the piece enters and how it revises the prevailing model. - Interpretation is controlled by evidence; large claims about social change are proportioned to what the sources can bear. - Engagement reaches across subfields, with comparison or wider framing integral to the argument and any social-science concepts used with historical discipline, not as ornament. ## Structure & house style - Long-form scholarly article sustaining a single argument; defer exact word limits and article types to the live guide. - Chicago notes-and-bibliography style with full footnotes; archival and quantitative citations follow the journal's form. - Double-blind review: anonymize the manuscript — remove self-identifying citations and acknowledgements — per current policy. - Prose is argument-led and legible to historians outside the subfield; non-English sources are quoted and translated per policy. - Tables, figures, or images, where used, require permissions and meet the journal's specifications. ## Official-submission checklist - Before giving submission-ready advice, read `../../resources/source-basis.md` and `../../resources/official-source-map.md`; start from the OUP / Past and Present Society anchors, then cite the current Past & Present page you checked. - Search the live site for "Past and Present submission guidelines" and follow the current version. - Re-check article types, word limits, the Chicago footnote form, and the abstract requirement. - Confirm anonymization requirements for double-blind review. - Re-check image/table permissions and specifications, and the translation policy for non-English sources. - Re-check competing-interest, funding (if applicable), and AI-use disclosure, and any open-access terms. - If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win. ## Pre-submission self-check - [ ] The article is built around a stated historical problem, not just a narrative or an additive case. - [ ] The larger significance — what the case reveals about social change or power — is explicit. - [ ] Primary sources are read critically and claims are proportioned to the evidence. - [ ] The historiographical intervention names the model it revises. - [ ] The manuscript is anonymized for double-blind review per current policy. - [ ] Chicago footnotes, any abstract, and translations of non-English sources are handled. ## Common desk-reject triggers - A well-sourced local study with no larger problem or comparative stake. - Narrative or descriptive history that never frames an interpretive question. - Thin or uncritical source use, or claims about social change out of proportion to the evidence. - No explicit historiographical positioning — restating the literature without revising it, or quantitative material reported for its own sake. - Wrong venue: a piece whose real audience is one area community a specialist journal serves better. ## Re-routing decision - Discipline-wide significance for a generalist readership → `the-american-historical-review`. - Modern European or transnational focus with archival depth → `the-journal-of-modern-history`. - British, medieval, or early-modern empirical study → `the-english-historical-review`. - Everyday-life, class, gender, or marginalized-group focus with methodological self-consciousness → `journal-of-social-history`. - Argument about historical method, periodization, or explanation itself → `history-and-theory`. ## Output format ```text [Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason) [Target] Past & Present [Field/period/region] [Argument] [Sources/historiography] [Top risk] [Official items to re-check] [Re-route suggestion] ```