World History Bulletin

World History Bulletin

The World History Bulletin is a biannual publication of the World History Association that is sponsored by the Southeast World History Association.  Featuring short-form essays (roughly 1,500–3,000 words in length), the Bulletin is a forum devoted to raising interesting questions, stimulating lively debate, and engaging with all aspects of world historical scholarship including pedagogy, research, and theory. Topics may include any period or geographic focus in history.  Pedagogical materials such as syllabi or assignments are welcome, as are reviews of books or other scholarly works.

Submissions for the World History Bulletin should be in Microsoft Word or a similar electronic format, and should follow the style guidelines of the Journal of World History described above. Please address any submissions or inquiries to Editor-in-Chief Joseph Snyder <bulletin@thewha.org>.  Historians and disciplinarily allied scholars interested in guest-editing a selection of essays on a particular theme are strongly encouraged to contact the editor.

Call for Papers | “Food and World History” | World History Bulletin | Due: 6/10/23

World History Bulletin is seeking quality research essays, lesson plans, and classroom activities for inclusion in its upcoming Spring 2023 issue, “Food and World History.”

Guest-edited by Jeffrey Pilcher, author of such works as Food in World History and, more recently, Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican Food, “Food and World History” explores the connection between food and the development of human civilizations through the ages. Climate change and increasingly frequent weather-related catastrophes have helped to draw attention to food infrastructures, particularly in light of food crises arising from desertification and unsustainable agricultural practices. These circumstances have intersected with questions concerning the relationship humanity has had with food, from food equity, wastage, and dearth to the influence food has exercised over the development and flowering of civilizations.

The Bulletin is interested in a range of topics related to the theme of food and world history, including:

• Food and Mobility. How the movements of goods, people, and ideas have shaped regional and global cuisines.
• Cuisine, Empire, and Cosmopolitanism. How food and cuisine offer a window into the imperial experience, but also the egalitarianism of cuisine in large, multi-cultural empires/imperial settings.
• Food and Health. How global interactions have produced new paradigms of nutrition.
• Food and Infrastructure. The creation of technologies and systems for preserving, transporting, storing, and marketing foods and the expansion of global interactions.
• Food and Gender. How gender roles have shaped the labor and consumption around foods.
• Power Structures and Food Monopolization. How throughout history the desire to control access to food has proved a basis of obtaining and maintaining power.
• Food and War. How the necessity of supplying troops on campaign or in barracks has transformed food systems and cultures.
• Food and Knowledge. How the codification of cooking literature and knowledge of plants and health have interacted historically across cultures.
• Future World History and Food. On the risks and challenges presented by urbanization and food deserts, comparative analyses of areas with food surpluses (and wastage) with those suffering dearth, etc.
• Topics on the fringes of food and world history also welcome. 

World History Bulletin therefore invites contributions to a thematic issue on food and world history. We are especially interested in articles that share fresh research or historiographical perspectives on the linkages between food and world history; present innovative teaching at all levels that employs food and cuisine to explore world history themes; or explore the connection between student engagement with food and cuisine. We also welcome short interviews with designers, artists, writers, and scholars and small roundtables on a book, film, or other work.

Interested in submitting?  View our style guide here: WHB Style Sheet.

Back issues of the World History Bulletin are available for download.