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Pluto Press is a British independent book publisher based in London, founded in 1969. Pluto Press states that it publishes "radical, left‐wing non­‐fiction books", and is
anti-capitalist Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and Political movement, movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists seek to combat the worst effects of capitalism and to eventually replace capitalism ...
and internationalist. It belongs to The International Alliance of Independent Publishers. It has published works by
Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
,
Mark "Chopper" Read Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read (17 November 1954 – 9 October 2013) was an Australian convicted criminal, gang member and author. Read wrote a series of semi-autobiographical fictional crime novels and children's books. The 2000 film '' Chop ...
,
Frantz Fanon Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961) was a French West Indian psychiatrist, political philosopher, and Marxist from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have become influential in the ...
,
Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a ...
,
bell hooks Gloria Jean Watkins (September 25, 1952 – December 15, 2021), better known by her pen name bell hooks (stylized in lowercase), was an American author, theorist, educator, and social critic who was a Distinguished Professor in Residence at Be ...
,
Edward Said Edward Wadie Said (1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American academic, literary critic, and political activist. As a professor of literature at Columbia University, he was among the founders of Postcolonialism, post-co ...
,
Augusto Boal Augusto Boal (; 16 March 1931 – 2 May 2009) was a Brazilian theatre practitioner, drama theorist, and political activist. He was the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, a theatrical form originally used in radical left popular education movem ...
,
Vandana Shiva Vandana Shiva (born 5 November 1952) is an Indian scholar, environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, ecofeminist and anti-globalization author. Based in Delhi, Shiva has written more than 20 books. She is often referred to as "Ga ...
, Susan George,
Ilan Pappé Ilan Pappé ( ; born 7 November 1954) is an Israeli historian, political scientist, and former politician. He is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, director ...
, Nick Robins,
Raya Dunayevskaya Raya Dunayevskaya (born Raya Shpigel, ; May 1, 1910 – June 9, 1987), later Rae Spiegel, also known by the pseudonym Freddie Forest, was the American founder of the philosophy of Marxist humanism in the United States. At one time Leon Trotsky's ...
, Graham Turner,
Alastair Crooke Alastair Warren Crooke CMG (sometimes misspelled as Alistair Crooke), born 30 June 1949, is a former British diplomat, and is the founder and director of the Beirut-based Conflicts Forum, an organisation that advocates for engagement between p ...
,
Gabriel Kolko Gabriel Morris Kolko (August 17, 1932 – May 19, 2014) was an American historian. His research interests included American capitalism and political history, the Progressive Era, and U.S. foreign policy in the 20th century. One of the best-known ...
,
Hamid Dabashi Hamid Dabashi (; born 1951) is an Iranian-American professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at Columbia University in New York City. He is the author of over twenty books. Among them are ''Theology of Discontent'', several books ...
,
Tommy McKearney Tommy McKearney (born 1952) is a former Irish volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army who took part in the 1980 hunger strike. Background McKearney was born in Lurgan in the north-east of County Armagh, but he was raised in The Mo ...
,
Amal Saad-Ghorayeb Amal Abdo Saad-Ghorayeb () is a Lebanese writer and political analyst known for her writings on the Israeli–Lebanese conflict and Hezbollah. Life Saad-Ghorayeb was an assistant professor of political science at the Lebanese American University ...
,
Syed Saleem Shahzad Syed Saleem Shahzad (, 3 November 1970 – 30 May 2011) was a Pakistani investigative journalist who wrote widely for leading European and Asian media. He served as the Pakistan Bureau Chief of Asia Times Online (Hong Kong) and Italian news age ...
, David Cronin, John Holloway,
Euclid Tsakalotos Euclid Stefanou Tsakalotos ( ; born 1960) is a Greek economist and politician who was Minister of Finance of Greece from 2015 to 2019. He was also a member of the Central Committee of Syriza and has represented Athens B in the Hellenic Parliam ...
, Graham Usher, David Miller and
Jonathan Cook Jonathan Cook, born circa 1965, is a British writer and a freelance journalist formerly based in Nazareth, Israel, who writes about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He writes a regular column for '' The National'' of Abu Dhabi and Middle E ...
.


History: 1969–1987

Pluto Press was set up in London by Richard Kuper in 1969 to support and promote political debate and
activism Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make Social change, changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from ...
. Its
Trotskyist Trotskyism (, ) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an ...
agenda stemmed from its early association with the International Socialists, which broadened to a wider revolutionary left in 1972 when Nina and
Michael Kidron Michael Kidron (20 September 1930 – 25 March 2003) was a British cartographer. He was one of the early founders of the International Socialists (the forerunners of the Socialist Workers Party or SWP) through the 1960s and 1970s, and the first ...
joined. Anne Benewick and Ric Sissons joined soon after, and the team eventually reached 16 in number. Pluto Press has been described as "one of the most influential socialist publishing houses of that time". Publishing extensively in the areas of movement history, race politics, Ireland, feminism and sexual politics, early successes included
Sheila Rowbotham Sheila Rowbotham (born 27 February 1943) is an English socialist feminist theorist and historian. She is the author of many notable books in the field of women's studies, including ''Hidden from History'' (1973), ''Beyond the Fragments'' (1979 ...
's ''Hidden from History: 300 years of women's oppression and the fight against it''. and Patrick Kinnersley's ''Hazards of Work''. Series published during this period include: the ''Workers' Handbooks''; the ''Marxism Series''; ''Ideas in Action''; ''Militarism, State and Society'' series; ''Pluto Plays''; ''Arguments for Socialism''; ''Pluto Crime''; ''Liberation Classics'' in the 1980s; and the ''Big Red Diaries''. The most successful was the ''State of the World Atlas'' series by
Michael Kidron Michael Kidron (20 September 1930 – 25 March 2003) was a British cartographer. He was one of the early founders of the International Socialists (the forerunners of the Socialist Workers Party or SWP) through the 1960s and 1970s, and the first ...
and
Ronald Segal Ronald Michael Segal (14 July 1932 – 23 February 2008) was a South African activist, writer and editor, founder of the anti-apartheid magazine '' Africa South'' and the Penguin African Library. Life Ronald Segal was born on 14 July 1932, int ...
– visual encapsulations of major social and political trends – which were created and produced by Pluto Press and published by
Pan Books Pan Books is a British publishing imprint that first became active in the 1940s and is now part of the British-based Macmillan Publishers, owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group of Germany. History Pan Books began as an indepe ...
. The target readership was reached by selling directly to trades unions, women's organisations and networks, student unions, and theatre audiences as well as through the network of radical bookshops that emerged in the 1970s. Pluto Press became a distributor and co-publisher of titles generated by Urizen Books and
South End Press South End Press was a non-profit book publisher run on a model of participatory economics. It was founded in 1977 in Boston's South End. It published books written by political activists, notably Arundhati Roy, Noam Chomsky, bell hooks, Win ...
in the US, and Ink Links in the UK, as well as distributor for Counter-Information Services,
History Workshop The ''History Workshop Journal'' is a British academic history journal published by Oxford University Press. ''History Workshop'' was founded in 1976 by Raphael Samuel and others involved in the History Workshop movement. Originally sub-titled "A ...
, ''Feminist Review'' and others. A trade sales organisation, Volume Sales, was set up in partnership with
Allison & Busby Allison & Busby (A & B) is a publishing house based in London established by Clive Allison and Margaret Busby in 1967. The company has built up a reputation as a leading independent publisher. Background Launching as a publishing company in Ma ...
, under the direction of Ric Sissons (who later ran Pluto Australia). New departures in publishing included working with
Max Stafford-Clark Maxwell Robert Guthrie Stewart "Max" Stafford-Clark (born 17 March 1941) is a British theatre director. Life and career Stafford-Clark was born in Cambridge, the son of David Stafford-Clark, a physician, and Dorothy Crossley (née Oldfield). H ...
and the
Royal Court Theatre The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a West End theatre#London's non-commercial theatres, non-commercial theatre in Sloane Square, London, England, opene ...
to encourage theatre-goers to read playscripts by printing programmes that included the entire play. In 1987, Pluto Press was bought by Roger van Zwanenberg and Norman Drake. Drake later sold his shares to van Zwanenberg.


University of Michigan Press controversy

Prior to
Palgrave Macmillan Palgrave Macmillan is a British academic and trade publishing company headquartered in the London Borough of Camden. Its programme includes textbooks, journals, monographs, professional and reference works in print and online. It maintains offi ...
, Pluto Press was distributed by The
University of Michigan Press The University of Michigan Press is a university press that is a part of Michigan Publishing at the University of Michigan Library. It publishes 170 new titles each year in the humanities and social sciences. Titles from the press have earn ...
in the United States. However, in June 2008, The University of Michigan Press terminated this relationship after new guidelines were established for its relationships with external publishing houses. The decision came after a series of events tied to the distribution of a 2007 Pluto Press book, ''Overcoming Zionism'' (written by then
Bard College Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains within the Hudson River Historic District ...
professor
Joel Kovel Joel Stephen Kovel (August 27, 1936 – April 30, 2018) was an American psychiatrist, scholar, human rights activist, and author known as a founder of eco-socialism. Kovel became a psychoanalyst, but he abandoned psychoanalysis in 1985. Backg ...
), which argues for a "one state" solution to the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about Territory, land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation ...
. After briefly resuming the redistribution, the University of Michigan finally ceased it in 2008, observing that Pluto Press does not undertake
peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (:wiktionary:peer#Etymology 2, peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the ...
of the finished manuscripts it publishes. This rationale was described as "a facade" by Roger van Zwanenberg, chairman of Pluto Press, who says that the University of Michigan knew that Pluto's peer review process "is not identical to that of a university press."


Pluto Journals

Launched in 2009, Pluto Journals publishes several open-access journals. As of 2022, the following journals are active: *''
Arab Studies Quarterly ''Arab Studies Quarterly'' (''ASQ'') is an English-language academic journal devoted to Arabist studies. It was established in 1979 by the Professors Edward Said and Ibrahim Abu-Lughod. They envisioned the journal to be a platform for academic res ...
'' *''Bethlehem University Journal'' *''Decolonial Horizons / Horizontes Decoloniales'' *''Groundings: The Journal of the Walter Rodney Foundation'' *''Institute of Employment Rights Journal'' *''International Journal of Critical Diversity Studies'' *''International Journal of Cuban Studies'' *''International Journal of Disability and Social Justice'' *''Islamophobia Studies Journal'' *''Journal for the Study of Indentureship and its Legacies'' *''Journal of Fair Trade'' *''Journal of Global Faultlines'' *''Journal of Intersectionality'' *''Policy Perspectives'' *''Prometheus. Critical Studies in Innovation'' *''ReOrient: The Journal of Critical Muslim Studies'' *''
Socialist Lawyer The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers is a socialist and legal campaigning organisation in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1930 to provide legal support to the then Labour Party (UK), Labour government. The Society was named after Richar ...
'' *''State Crime Journal'' *''Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation'' *''World Review of Political Economy'' *''Zanj: The Journal of Critical Global South Studies''


References


External links

* {{Authority control 1969 establishments in England Academic publishing companies Book publishing companies based in London British companies established in 1969 Political book publishing companies Publishing companies based in London Publishing companies established in 1969