Basic Books
| Company type | Imprint |
|---|---|
| Industry | Publishing |
| Founded | 1950 |
| Headquarters | New York City , United States |
Area served | International |
| Products | Books (psychology, philosophy, economics, science, politics, sociology, contemporary issues, history) |
| Parent | Hachette Book Group |
Basic Books is a publishing company established in 1950 and based in New York City. It currently operates as an imprint under the Hachette Book Group. The publisher focuses on titles related to psychology, philosophy, economics, science, politics, sociology, contemporary issues, and history.
History
Originally, Basic Books started as a modest book club in Greenwich Village catering to psychoanalysts. The company was taken over by Arthur Rosenthal in 1950, who redirected its mission toward publishing original works mainly within the behavioral sciences. Among its early significant releases were Ernest Jones's The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud and publications by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Jean Piaget, and Erik Erikson. In 1960, with the addition of Irving Kristol, the catalog grew to include social science disciplines. Basic Books was acquired by Harper & Row in 1969.
By 1997, HarperCollins integrated Basic Books into its trade division, ending its academic publishing emphasis. That same year, the company was sold to the newly created Perseus Books Group. Later, in 2016, Hachette Book Group purchased Perseus, thereby expanding Basic Books' international reach. Two years afterward, in 2018, Seal Press became an imprint under Basic Books, broadening its offerings within the Hachette corporate family.
Authors
Among the authors published by Basic Books are:
- Stephon Alexander
- Robert Alter
- Edward E. Baptist
- H.W. Brands
- Zbigniew Brzezinski
- Iris Chang
- Stephanie Coontz
- Richard Dawkins
- Andrea Dworkin
- Michael Eric Dyson
- Niall Ferguson
- Richard Feynman
- Richard Florida
- Martin Ford
- Howard Gardner
- Jonathan Haidt
- Victor Davis Hanson
- Judith L. Herman
- Christopher Hitchens
- Douglas Hofstadter
- Leszek Kolakowski
- Kevin M. Kruse
- Lawrence Lessig
- Robert Nozick
- Steven Pinker
- Samantha Power
- Eugene Rogan
- Lee Smolin
- Jacob Soll
- Jason Sokol
- Timothy Snyder
- Tamler Sommers
- Thomas Sowell
- Ian Stewart
- Beverly Daniel Tatum
- James Traub
- Sherry Turkle
- Eric Topol
- Michael Walzer
- Elizabeth Warren
- George Weigel
- Steven Weinberg
- Frank Wilczek
- Bee Wilson
- Richard Wrangham
- Irvin D. Yalom
External links
- Official website of Basic Books
- Perseus Group website (archived on February 25, 2017)
- Article by Samuel G. Freedman about the creation of Perseus Books