[no subject]

["William C. Wooldridge" <woldrdge@Princeton.EDU>]

Dear List,

A friend of mine has been tapped by a very small publishing house to recommend authors for short studies of the very recent history of China, Japan, and perhaps Korea or anywhere else.  Anyone interested in writing such a book should contact me (Chuck Wooldridge woldrdge@princeton.edu), and I will forward your name to my friend.  Alternatively, feel free to get in touch with Zed Books directly.   

Thanks in advance,
Chuck Wooldridge


Zed Books, an independent publishing house in England, is about to
commission a new series entitled "A Global History of the Present." The
series will feature books written by professional historians that cover
the history of a particular country or region from 1989 to the present;
the hook is that Zed wants these books to challenge a US/European
narrative of global history in this period which holds that the world has
moved from a Cold War through a period of 'globalization' to the new 'war
on terror.' The hope is that these histories of specific nations and
regions, written by specialists but pitched towards a general reader, will
add up to a kind of mosaic-view of the world that pushes beyond this
simple and Western-focused global narrative.

The books will be shortish (50,000 words), and each title will be issued
in a print run of 5000 initially. (More if the book sells out.) Zed has a
terrific distribution network, especially in the developing world, and a
great record of getting books translated and thereby into the hands of an
even wider audience. The books will start coming out in 2005, so the
window for commissioning titles and submitting manuscripts is approx.
2004-2006.

There's not a lot of money in this (advances of $1500-$2000 or
thereabouts) but it would be a great chance to engage with contemporary
issues and to argue for the global importance of the particular country or
region that you work on; and also to critique the imposition of these
other narratives that don't really do justice to the complex past and
present of the world beyond the US and Europe.

If you can think of folks who are interested -- primarily historians, but
we'd certainly be open to scholars from other disciplines who would be
comfortable working within the framework described above -- do let me
know.