Basic Books is a book publisher founded in 1950 and located in New York City, now an
imprint of
Hachette Book Group. It publishes books in the fields of
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
, philosophy, economics, science, politics, sociology, current affairs, and history.
History
Basic Books originated as a small
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to the north, Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the s ...
-based book club marketed to psychoanalysts. Arthur Rosenthal took over the book club in 1950, and under his ownership it soon began producing original books, mostly in the behavioral sciences. Early successes included Ernest Jones's ''The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud'', as well as works by
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss ( ; ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a Belgian-born French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair o ...
,
Jean Piaget
Jean William Fritz Piaget (, ; ; 9 August 1896 – 16 September 1980) was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development. Piaget's theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called genetic epistemology.
...
and
Erik Erikson.
Irving Kristol joined Basic Books in 1960, and helped Basic to expand into the social sciences.
Harper & Row purchased the company in 1969.
In 1997,
HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...
announced that it would merge Basic Books into its trade publishing program, effectively closing the imprint and ending its publishing of serious academic books. That same year, Basic was purchased by the newly created
Perseus Books Group. Perseus's publishing business was acquired by
Hachette Book Group in 2016. In 2018, Seal Press became an imprint of Basic.
Authors
Basic's list of authors includes:
*
Stephon Alexander
*
Robert Alter
Robert Bernard Alter (born 1935) is an American professor emeritus of Hebrew language, Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1967. He has published two dozen books, including an aw ...
*
Edward E. Baptist
*
H.W. Brands
*
Zbigniew Brzezinski
*
Iris Chang
*
Stephanie Coontz
*
Richard Dawkins
*
Andrea Dworkin
Andrea Rita Dworkin (September 26, 1946 – April 9, 2005) was an American radical feminist writer and activist best known for her analysis of pornography. Her feminist writings, beginning in 1974, span 30 years. They are found in a dozen sol ...
*
Michael Eric Dyson
Michael Eric Dyson (born October 23, 1958) is an American academic, author, Baptist minister, and radio host. He is a professor in the College of Arts and Science and in the Divinity School at Vanderbilt University. Described by Michael A. Fletche ...
*
*
Richard Feynman
*
Richard Florida
*
Martin Ford
*
Howard Gardner
*
Jonathan Haidt
*
Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson (born September 5, 1953) is an American classics, classicist, military historian, and conservative political commentator. He has been a commentator on modern warfare, modern and ancient warfare and contemporary politics fo ...
*
Judith L. Herman
*
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British and American author and journalist. He was the author of Christopher Hitchens bibliography, 18 books on faith, religion, culture, politics, and literature. He was born ...
*
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
Timothy David Snyder (born August 18, 1969) is an American historian specializing in the history of Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. He is on leave from his position as the Richard C. Levin, Richar ...
*
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
References
External links
Basic Books websitePerseus Group website
(archived February 25, 2017)
Samuel G. Freedman on the formation of Perseus Books
{{authority control
Book publishing companies based in New York City
Publishing companies established in 1950
American companies established in 1950
1950 establishments in New York City