Business History Review

Instructions for Contributors

Business History Review seeks articles drawn from rigorous primary research that address major
debates and offer comparative perspectives. We consider the history of entrepreneurs, firms, and
business systems, and the subjects of innovation, globalization, and regulation. We are also interested
in the relation of businesses to political regimes and the environment.

Manuscripts are considered for publication on the understanding that they are not currently under
consideration elsewhere and that the material—in substance as well as form—has not been previously
published.

Manuscripts should be submitted by e-mail to [email protected].

Authors must remember not to identify themselves in the body of the manuscript; specifically,
references to their own work in the text should be in the third person, and citations should be written
without possessive pronouns—not "See my …."

We use the 16th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (2010) and spell and hyphenate words
according to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.

Send a bio of three to four sentences, stating affiliation and recent publications.

Be sure to include an abstract of no more than100 words outlining the main point(s) of the paper and
placing the article in context. Subheads should be used to divide the manuscript into three or four
sections (or more, depending on length).

Articles should not be more than 10,000 words in length, including footnotes.

Each table and figure must be accompanied by a complete source.

When submitting figures, please include the data files. Charges apply for all colour figures that appear
in the print version of the journal. At the time of submission, contributors should clearly state whether
their figures should appear in colour in the online version only, or whether they should appear in colour
online and in the print version. There is no charge for including colour figures in the online version of
the Journal but it must be clear that colour is needed to enhance the meaning of the figure, rather than
simply being for aesthetic purposes. If you request colour figures in the printed version, you will be
contacted by CCC-Rightslink who are acting on our behalf to collect Author Charges. Please follow
their instructions in order to avoid any delay in the publication of your article.

Tables should prepared in a Word format to facilitate in-house editing.

Authors are responsible for obtaining all illustrative materials and permissions for reproduction, and for
writing captions.

The journal encourages authors to use gender-neutral prose in all cases where it is not anachronistic to
do so; male nouns and pronouns should not be used to refer to people of both sexes.

We use the day-month-year form for dates in citations, as 11 February 2007.

Double quotation marks should be used for journal article titles and direct quotation; single quotation
marks are used for quoted material inside quotations.
Authors, particularly those whose first language is not English, may wish to have their English-
language manuscripts checked by a native speaker before submission. This is optional, but may help to
ensure that the academic content of the paper is fully understood by the editor and any reviewers. We
list a number of third-party services specialising in language editing and/or translation, and suggest that
authors contact as appropriate: www.cambridge.org/academic/author-services

Please note that the use of any of these services is voluntary, and at the author's own expense. Use of
these services does not guarantee that the manuscript will be accepted for publication, nor does it
restrict the author to submitting to a Cambridge published journal.

Authors of accepted manuscripts will receive a copy of the issue in which their article appears and a
pdf file.

We encourage BHR authors to make their abstracts available on SSRN after the publication of their
articles. Please visit https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/open-access-policies for more
information on our open access policies, compliance with major funding bodies, and guidelines on
depositing your manuscript in an institutional repository.

Last updated 25th April 2017

Sample Citations

Book: Thomas K. McCraw, Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction
(Cambridge, Mass., 2007), 205-21.

Journal: Naomi R. Lamoreaux, "Scylla or Charybdis? Historical Reflections on Two Basic Problems
of Corporate Governance," Business History Review 83 (Spring 2009): 9-34.

Note that we do not include the publisher in book citations. We do not use loc. cit., op. cit., or idem.,
but ibid. (not italicized) may be used.

Editorial office:
Business History Review
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
tel.: (617) 495-1003
fax: (617) 495-2705
E-mail: [email protected]

Business office:
Cambridge University Press
University Printing House
Shaftesbury Road
Cambridge CB2 8BS, UK
Tel.: +44 (0)1223 358331
Fax:: +44 (0)1223 32 5801
E-mail: [email protected]
www.journals.cambridge.org/bhr
Guidelines for Book Reviewers

Please submit your review via e-mail to [email protected], either as an attachment or within the body of the
message.

Book reviews should be 800 to no more than 1,000 words. Review essays should be approximately
1,500 to 2,000 words. The length of the review should be indicative of the book’s importance. Please
do not undertake a longer review without checking with the editors. If you submit a review that exceeds
the word limit you will be asked to cut and resubmit it. Please let us know if, after reading a book, you
believe that it does not merit a review.

Reviews originally undertaken for the Business History Review must not be pre-published in another
venue, whether print or on line. The Business History Review reserves the right not to publish a review.

Describe clearly and concisely the nature, scope, and thesis of the book, locate it in the relevant
literature, and indicate its contribution to scholarship. Your review should not consist entirely of a
summary of the book’s contents.

Discuss the extent to which the book achieves its stated objectives, draws on relevant source material,
and is well organized and well written.

We are interested in the value of the book to business historians, but please bear in mind that the
authors of many of the books we review are not themselves business historians and may have intended
a wider, or simply a different, audience. It is appropriate to indicate the extent to which a book may be
of interest to the readers of this journal, but it is less appropriate to condemn or praise a book primarily
for the extent to which it suits a business historian’s needs.

Attach to your review a brief biographical statement, including your title and affiliation. Use the
following format:

Henrietta Larson is professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. She is

You need not list more of the title and bibliographic information than are required to identify the book.
We will provide the correct heading here.

When quoting from the book under review, please cite the page number. It should appear in
parentheses at the end of the sentence. “Cite quotes like this” (p. 95).

If you quote from or refer specifically to another book in your review, please provide the author’s name
(first name as well as last), the full title of the book, and the book’s date of publication. If you cite a
journal article, include the author’s name, journal title, and the month and year of publication. You
may include the article title or not, as you wish: “In a recent study on slave mortality, Robert Brown
concluded that… (Journal of American History [June 1984]).” Do not use footnotes.

Include the first name (or initials, for those authors, like D. C. M. Platt, who are known that way) in the
first reference to any person you mention. This does include any person you feel sure everyone will
recognize.

Similarly, use the full name in the first use of any item that you wish subsequently to identify by an
acronym.

We generally follow the 16th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style (2010).

Last updated 3rd April 2013