Originally published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson it was purchased by SAGE Publications in 1972.

The journal publishes scholarly articles, review articles and book reviews, covering a broad range of historical approaches including social, economic, political, diplomatic, intellectual and cultural, on every country and region of the world within living memory, from 1930 to the present day.

The journal also publishes special issues, arising from conferences or from an externally submitted proposal.

Since 2008, the journal has included reviews of individual books, in addition to review articles covering a range of books within the compass of a single critical essay.

[3] The Times Literary Supplement has described it as "one of the outstanding learned journals of history in the English-speaking world.