Romaniello returns to the Journal of World History

The University of Hawai‘i Press welcomes Matthew P. Romaniello back to the Journal of World History. Romaniello, a Russian and world historian at Weber State University, was first appointed as associate editor by founding editor Jerry Bentley in 2011. Following Bentley’s retirement, Romaniello produced volumes 23 through 25 and served as the Center for World History director.

Romaniello now takes over the helm from editor-in-chief Fabio López Lázaro. Professor López Lázaro, from the University of Hawai‘i, edited the journal from 2014 to 2019 along with co-editors Kerry Ward from Rice University and Cátia Antunes from Leiden University. Michele Louro from Salem State University served as managing editor and Wensheng Wang from the University of Hawai‘i as Book Reviews Coordinating Editor.

The Journal of World History, which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary, has long been the leading research journal in the field of world history, often featuring approaches to economic and world systems. Looking ahead, Romaniello sees the opportunity for the Journal of World History to further include the scholarship of other comparative and transnational subfields of history, including medical, environmental, and social and gender history.

Prior to Weber, Romaniello spent eleven years at the University of Hawai‘i, where he was promoted to full professor. He has published two monographs,  Enterprising Empires: Russia and Britain in Eighteenth-Century Eurasia (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and The Elusive Empire: Kazan and the Creation of Russia, 1552-1671 (University of Wisconsin Press, 2012), and is currently finishing a monograph on a study of health and illness in the Russian Empire, examining state regulation of colonial bodies. He is also the co-editor of four volumes of collected essays, with two more currently in production, and twenty articles on a variety of topics, but particularly in commodities history and material culture, the history of medicine and knowledge exchanges, and colonialism. In addition to his previous work with the Journal of World History, Romaniello has served as editor at Sibirica: Interdisciplinary Journal of Siberia Studies


The Journal of World History publishes research into historical questions requiring the investigation of evidence on a global, comparative, cross-cultural, or transnational scale. It is devoted to the study of phenomena that transcend the boundaries of single states, regions, or cultures, such as large-scale population movements, long-distance trade, cross-cultural technology transfers, and the transnational spread of ideas. Individual subscription is by membership in the World History Association.

Matthew P. Romaniello, editor of the Journal of World History
Matthew P. Romaniello, editor of the Journal of World History
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