ISSN: 1479-2443 (Print), 1479-2451 (Online)
Editors: Brandon Byrd Vanderbilt University, USA, Duncan Kelly University of Cambridge, UK, Tracie M. Matysik University of Texas at Austin, USA, Alden Young Yale University, USA, and Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins Wesleyan University, USA
Editorial board

Modern Intellectual History publishes scholarship in intellectual and cultural history from 1650 onwards. MIH concerns itself primarily with apprehending the contextual origins and receptions of texts in order to recover their historical meanings. But we understand ‘texts’ in the broadest sense, so as to encompass multiple forms of intellectual and cultural expression. These include, but are not limited to, political thought, philosophy, religion, literature, both the social sciences and the natural sciences, music, architecture, and the visual arts.

Revising the history of early French social science
08 June 2023, Thomas Lalevée
Historians long thought the term science sociale was coined in 1789 by the revolutionary theorist Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès.

Radical Democracy and/or Ordinary Anarchy?
06 June 2023, Sophie Scott-Brown
Journalist Colin Ward (1924-2010) believed anarchism was ordinary with its roots firmly in the small, everyday acts of improvised co-operation that made living...

Biomedicine, Scientific Internationalism, and the Containment of Soviet Power
27 March 2026, Daniele Cozzoli
By the end of the Second World War, Britain and the United States discontinued their scientific and technological collaboration with the Soviet Union.…...

Zoological colour on HMS Beagle: Charles Darwin’s chromatic language
27 March 2026, Joyce Dixon
Image credit: Charles Darwin’s copy of Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours (1821) by Patrick Syme. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University...

A gift with unexpected – and lasting – consequences
27 March 2026, Kenneth Bertrams
It’s always nice to receive a gift. However, receiving a gift that permanently transforms the living conditions of a significant proportion of society is disruptive,...

Modern Intellectual History

Recent articles and essays

The Early Modern Epicurean Revival and the History of Relativism

The Indigenous: A History of the Idea

Freedom of Choice and the Choice of Freedom

Assembling Eurocapitalism

The Politics of Hope, Democracy in Crisis: Cycles in the Human Body, Chinese History, and American Politics

Enlightenment for the Common People? Frederick II and the Philosophes on Popular Prejudice, Deception, and Education

Marx without Teleology

The Body’s American Moment, 1979–1993