As we approach the midway point of 2024, I wanted to take a moment to fill you in on some big changes at Law and History Review (LHR), and to glimpse at some big developments to come.
First, I want to thank our readers for continuing to make The Docket such a success! We continue to see big numbers of visitors, and I’ve heard from many–from independent scholars, high school teachers, graduate students, law students, and academics–that our content is making its way into classrooms and syllabuses (and elsewhere). When I began my time as Editor-in-Chief of LHR, I really wanted to find a way to spread the word about the amazing work that legal historians were up to. I also wanted to show those who may not typically have seen themselves as “legal historians” that they were part of scholarly discussions that were already underway within the American Society for Legal History community–and beyond! Have we accomplished these goals? Personally speaking, I’ll always want more–more engagement and platforms. So while we’ve come a long way, I am hoping to see even more in the future!
We’ve built a noteworthy following on social media through the platform once known as “Twitter” (@theDocketLHR) and we’ve also found our way on to Instagram (@lawandhistoryreview). If you don’t already do so, give us a follow and you’ll be able to get the most up-to-date info about what we are up to.
Now to the changes.
It is with a great deal of sadness that I announce that Professor Jedidiah Kroncke of The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law has stepped down from his position as Associate Editor of LHR, which he had held since 2018. As Associate Editor, Jed was chiefly responsible for book reviews covering books about Asia–yes, all of it! But even with this enormous remit, Jed did a great deal more. He was a constant source of advice and help to me with editorial matters for both LHR and The Docket, and even organized our superb forum on Christine Desan’s book, Making Money. Jed was also instrumental in keeping us up and running during the darkest days of the Covid-19 pandemic. All of this to say that we owe Jed a debt that cannot ever be close to being repaid. From all of us, Jed, we thank you for everything you did for the journal!
I’ll soon have an update about Jed’s successor, but for now the other big change at the journal is that we’ve worked with our publisher, Cambridge University Press, to move our book reviews into the manuscript management system known as Scholar One. This won’t change much for our authors, but has been a big change for our Associate Editors. I thank Associate Editors Elizabeth Papp Kamali and Nate Holdren for their incredible patience and diligence, and our colleagues at Cambridge University Press for helping to get the new system up and running. We had to take a small break from publishing book reviews as we acclimatized to the new system, but we will soon be publishing reviews as we had consistently done in the past.
Thank you again for reading and sharing The Docket!