by the Past & Present editorial team

Every year we invite the Postdoctoral Fellows that we sponsor at the Institute of Historical Research in London to curate a “Virtual Issue” of the journal. Each issue commences with an introduction by the Fellow(s) who have curated the issue exploring the historiographical concerns, trends and currents that they have picked out from their reading of back issues of the journal. This introduction is then followed by a series of (free to read) articles that they have chosen which have been published on their chosen theme throughout the more than seventy year period that Past and Present has been published.

The Society’s 2021 – 23 Fellows Dr. Tamara Fernando, Dr. Felice Physioc and Dr. Alexis Rider have curated a virtual issue called the Flows of History. Exploring the historiograpy of water as presented in Past and Present.

They write:

“What does it mean to write the history of water? In this virtual issue we set out to explore how articles published in Past and Present, a journal of social history, have addressed the topic of water through time, with a caveat that several important conversations on water have also taken place in other scholarly venues. Within the arbitrary constraint of a specific journal’s archives, the articles reviewed date mostly from the year 2000 onwards, reflecting the growing importance of water to scholarly (as well as cultural, political and artistic) agendas in the previous two decades. We have grouped these articles according to two major trends: ‘Water and Power’ (section I) and ‘Ecologizing Water’ (section II). In what follows, we draw out our two major concerns without aiming to be definitive, hoping instead to articulate two connected approaches to water history that constitute one base for a rapidly growing and developing field.”

Read the full virtual issue here.

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