Journal of Genocide Research

• 1. Introduction

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  The Journal of Genocide Research arrived in 1999, staking out space for serious academic inquiry into one of humanity's darkest subjects. For its first six years, it published without peer review, a fact that says something about the state of genocide studies at the time. The field was still finding its institutional footing. What would it take to bring scholarly rigor to this work, and who would do it?

• 2. A Field Finds Its Form

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  In December 2005, something changed for the journal. It became the official publication of the International Network of Genocide Scholars, a shift that brought peer review along with it. That combination, formal scholarly vetting plus institutional backing from an international network, gave the journal a different standing in the academic world. Researchers submitting work now faced the scrutiny of specialists in the field. The journal publishes four issues a year, maintaining a steady cadence for new scholarship on genocide studies.

• 3. The Editors Who Shaped It

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  Henry R. Huttenbach was among the earlier editors who helped define what the journal would cover and how. Dominik J. Schaller followed, then Jürgen Zimmerer. Each brought their own scholarly perspective to the work of curating genocide research. As of 2022, A. Dirk Moses of City College of New York serves as editor-in-chief, continuing that editorial lineage. The journal appears under the Routledge imprint, placing it within one of the major academic publishing houses.

• 4. How Scholars Find It

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  A journal's reach depends partly on where it is indexed. The Journal of Genocide Research appears in Political Science Abstracts, Historical Abstracts, and America: History and Life. Those three databases serve researchers working across political science and history, the two disciplines most likely to engage with genocide as a subject of study. A historian looking into twentieth-century atrocities and a political scientist studying mass violence would both find pathways to this journal through their usual research tools.