Princeton University Press

Princeton University Press is a nonprofit publisher closely affiliated with Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large.

The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial support of Charles Scribner II, Charles Scribner, as a printing press to serve the Princeton community in 1905. Its distinctive building was constructed in 1911 on William Street in Princeton. Its first book was a new 1912 edition of John Witherspoon's ''Lectures on Moral Philosophy.''

History

Princeton University Press was founded in 1905 by Princeton graduate and manager of the ''Alumni Weekly'', Whitney Darrow. It began as Princeton Alumni Press, a small printing house which published the ''Princeton Alumni Weekly''. The press received financial support from Princeton alumnus, Charles Scribner II. Darrow and Scribner purchased the equipment and assumed the operations of two already existing local publishers, that of the ''Princeton Alumni Weekly'' and the Princeton Press. The new press printed both local newspapers, university documents, ''The Daily Princetonian'', and later added book publishing to its activities. Beginning as a small, for-profit printer, Princeton University Press was reincorporated as a nonprofit in 1910.

Since 1911, the press has been headquartered in a purpose-built gothic-style building designed by Ernest Flagg. The design of press's building, which was named the Scribner Building in 1965, was inspired by the Plantin-Moretus Museum, a printing museum in Antwerp, Belgium. In 1912, the Press published its first book, a new edition of ''Lectures on Moral Philosophy'' by John Witherspoon.

Princeton University Press established a European office, in Woodstock, England, north of Oxford, in 1999, and opened an additional office, in Beijing, in early 2017.

Princeton University Press joined The Association of American Publishers trade organization in the Hachette v. Internet Archive lawsuit which resulted in the removal of access to over 500,000 books from global readers.

In 2025, Princeton University Press was criticized when several members of its staff appeared in Chinese state media on an officially-sanctioned tour of sites in Xinjiang.

Pulitzers and other major awards

Six books from Princeton University Press have won Pulitzer Prizes:
*''Russia Leaves the War'' by George F. Kennan (1957)
*''Banks and Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War'' by Bray Hammond (1958)
*''Between War and Peace'' by Herbert Feis (1961)
*''Washington: Village and Capital'' by Constance McLaughlin Green (1963)
*''The Greenback Era'' by Irwin Unger (1965)
*''Machiavelli in Hell'' by Sebastian de Grazia (1989)

Books from Princeton University Press have also been awarded the Bancroft Prize, the Nautilus Book Award, and the National Book Award.

Papers projects

Multi-volume historical documents projects undertaken by the press include:
* ''Einstein Papers Project, The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein''
* ''The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Henry D. Thoreau''
* ''The Papers of Woodrow Wilson'' (sixty-nine volumes)
* ''The Papers of Thomas Jefferson''
* ''Søren Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard's Writings''

''The Papers of Woodrow Wilson'' has been called "one of the great editorial achievements in all history."

Bollingen Series

Princeton University Press's Bollingen Series had its beginnings in the Bollingen Foundation, a 1943 project of Paul Mellon's Old Dominion Foundation. From 1945, the foundation had independent status, publishing and providing fellowships and grants in several areas of study, including archaeology, poetry, and psychology. The Bollingen Series was given to the university in 1969.

Other series

Sciences

* Annals of Mathematics Studies (Alice Chang, Phillip A. Griffiths, Assaf Naor, editors; Lillian Pierce, associate editor)
* Princeton Series in Applied Mathematics (Ingrid Daubechies, Weinan E, Jan Karel Lenstra, Endre Süli, editors)
* Princeton Series in Astrophysics (David N. Spergel, editor)
* Princeton Series in Complexity (Simon A. Levin and Steven H. Strogatz, editors)
* Princeton Series in Evolutionary Biology (H. Allen Orr, editor)
* Princeton Series in International Economics (Gene Grossman, Gene M. Grossman, editor)
* Princeton Science Library

Humanities

* Princeton Modern Greek Studies

Biology

* Princeton Field Guides

Selected titles

*''Islamic Revival in British India'' by Barbara D. Metcalf (1982)
*''The Ulama in Contemporary Islam'' by The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change (2002)
*''The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle over American History'', by Jill Lepore (2010)
*''The Meaning of Relativity'' by Albert Einstein (1922)
*''Atomic Energy for Military Purposes'' by Henry DeWolf Smyth (1945)
*''How to Solve It'' by George Pólya, George Polya (1945)
*''The Open Society and Its Enemies'' by Karl Popper (1945)
*''The Hero With a Thousand Faces'' by Joseph Campbell (1949)
*The Richard Wilhelm (sinologist), Wilhelm/Baynes translation of the ''I Ching,'' Bollingen Series XIX. First copyright 1950, 27th printing 1997.
*''Anatomy of Criticism'' by Northrop Frye (1957)
*''Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature'' by Richard Rorty (1979)
*''QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter'' by Richard Feynman (1985)
*''The Great Contraction 1929–1933 ''by Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz (1963) with a new Introduction by Peter L. Bernstein (2008)
*''Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle'' by Stephen Biddle (2004)

See also

* List of English-language book publishing companies
* List of university presses

References

Further reading

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External links

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{{Authority control

Princeton University publications
University presses of the United States
Publishing companies established in 1905
Book publishing companies based in New Jersey
1905 establishments in New Jersey
Historic district contributing properties in Mercer County, New Jersey