History and audience

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    Abstract

    Editorial introduction: For whom are we writing history? The sense of audience is possibly one of the most beguiling issues facing historians. Each of us wants to think that when we write an article or a book, it will be found in libraries, book stores, be quoted and, of course cited in other works of scholarship. We are enchanted by the sense of being an author and having an audience. The reality is more challenging. According to Thomson Reuters, the historical profession has a very low citation rate, certainly compared to other fields. Political Science stands out as one example of a social science with higher citation rates: the hard sciences blow us out the water. The rule of thumb is that when a monograph is published it can expect to sell around 100 copies and this mostly to libraries. With University administrators cutting library budgets and with scholarship increasingly sold in electronic bundling, (and with chapters often downloaded separately), it is increasingly hard for the average academic to imagine that his books have a proper audience. Who are we writing for?
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1-4
    Number of pages4
    JournalBritain and the World
    Volume8
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2015

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