Empires reconfigured

With this issue, Comparativ includes three new features. Firstly, in a short intro the editors of the journal relate themes and arguments of the single issue to the wider programmatic concerns of Comparativ. Since its founding in 1991, the journal has published new research on world and global history at the crossroads of a wide range of area studies by means of thematic issues in which a selection of articles presents one topic from different and yet integrated angles. In this way, Comparativ serves to bring joint inquiries to the fore and provides a forum for collaborative studies on connections and comparisons along the many scales that have become relevant for the flows of past and present people, ideas and goods as well as for the ever renewed attempts to control such fluidity. Secondly, we complement our book review section with an annotation section that provides an increasing number of shorter summaries of newly released works. In doing so, we respond to the growing number of monographs and edited volumes that make it increasingly more difficult to gain an overview of, select and assign books for reviewing. Thirdly, Comparativ has been incorporated into the DOI system, which assigns persistent identifiers to the single article to increase the integration into as well as retrieval from digital databases and library catalogues.