Top journals in history ranked by 2007 impact factor

	Journal	Citations in 2007 to articles from 2005-06	Impact factor for 2007	Number of articles in 2007
1	American Historical Review	887	1.476	24
2	Environmental History	237	0.976	28
3	Journal of American History	512	0.851	16
4	Past and Present	569	0.607	46
5	Journal of African History	304	0.500	18
6	Journal of Modern History	267	0.415	17
7	Journal of Social History	253	0.348	34
8	Comparative Studies in Society and History	504	0.197	34
9	English Historical Review	243	0.193	25

The data above provide the latest ranking by impact factor for journals of history indexed by Thomson Reuters in its Journal Citations Report for the social sciences for 2007. Nine of 17 history journals in this database received 200 or more citations in 2007 to their 2005 and 2006 articles, and those nine are listed above. The impact factor is simply one measure of a journal’s influence (there are many others). It is a weighted measure – of citations per paper – and as such it is an attempt to compare journals of the same subject area that publish different numbers of papers each year. Journals producing many articles would typical attract more citations than those publishing comparatively fewer articles. The impact factor is calculated as citations in Year C to a journal’s contents in years A and B, divided by the number of regular articles and reviews published in years A and B. As such, this is a relatively short-term measure of journal influence. In a field such as history, articles tend to receive citations many years after their publication, and the peak citation rate may be five to ten years after an article appears. For this reason, the above ranking should be interpreted as “early returns” on the current status of professional journals in history.