The Journal of Modern African Studies is a quarterly academic journal

Academic journal

An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...

 covering developments in modern Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

n politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

 and society. Its main emphasis is on current issues in African politics, economies, societies, and international relations

International relations

International relations is the study of relationships between countries, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , international nongovernmental organizations , non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations...

. It publishes approximately 25 articles and 30 book reviews a year.

The journal is published by Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...

 and its current editor is Christopher Clapham from the University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

. From 1963 to 1997, David Kimble from the National University of Lesotho

National University of Lesotho

The National University of Lesotho is situated at Roma some 34 kilometers southeast of Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. The Roma valley is broad and is surrounded by a barrier of rugged mountains which provides magnificent scenery. The University enjoys a temperate climate with four distinctive...

 served as its editor.

Abstracting and indexing

According to the 2008 Journal Citation Reports

Journal Citation Reports

Journal Citation Reports is an annual publication by the Healthcare & Science division of Thomson Reuters. It has been integrated with the Web of Knowledge, by Thomson Reuters, and is accessed from the Web of Science to JCR Web. It provides information about academic journals in the sciences and...

, the journal has an impact factor

Impact factor

The impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to articles published in science and social science journals. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed...

 of 1.041, ranking it 4th out of 38 in the category "Area Studies". The journal is currently abstracted and indexed in:

• EBSCOhost
  EBSCO Publishing
  EBSCO Publishing, headquartered in Ipswich, Massachusetts, is an aggregator of premium full-text content. EBSCO Publishing's core business is providing online databases via EBSCOhost to libraries worldwide. EBSCOhost is used by libraries, schools, academic institutions, medical institutions, and...
  
  
• Humanities International Index
• International Bibliography of the Social Sciences
  International Bibliography of the Social Sciences
  The International Bibliography of the Social Sciences is a bibliography for social science and interdisciplinary research. The database focuses on the social science disciplines of anthropology, economics, politics and sociology, and related interdisciplinary subjects, such as development...
  
  
• ProQuest
  ProQuest
  ProQuest LLC is an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based electronic publisher and microfilm publisher.It provides archives of sources such as newspapers, periodicals, dissertations, and aggregated databases of many types. Its content is estimated at 125 billion digital pages...
  
  
• Scopus
  Scopus
  Scopus, officially named SciVerse Scopus, is a bibliographic database containing abstracts and citations for academic journal articles. It covers nearly 18,000 titles from over 5,000 international publishers, including coverage of 16,500 peer-reviewed journals in the scientific, technical, medical,...
  
  
• Social Sciences Citation Index
  Social Sciences Citation Index
  Social Sciences Citation Index is an interdisciplinary citation index product of Thomson Reuters' Healthcare & Science division. It was developed by the Institute for Scientific Information from the Science Citation Index....
  
  
• Sociological Abstracts

Notable articles

• "Explaining the 1994 genocide in Rwanda" - Helen M. Hintjens, Jun 1999 37:2, pp 241-286
• "China's engagement in Africa: scope, significance and consequences" - Denis M. Tull, Sep 2006 44:3, pp 459-479
• "Business environment and entrepreneurial activity in Nigeria: implications for industrial development" - Mary Agboli and Chikwendu Christian Ukaegbu, Mar 2006 44:1, pp 1-30
• "Diamonds or development? A structural assessment of Botswana's forty years of success" - Ellen Hillbom , Jun 2008 46:2, pp 191-214