Polity Press

Polity Press
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Name	Polity Press
Founded	1984
Founders	John Wiley & Sons?
Headquarters	Cambridge, United Kingdom
Publications	Books, Journals
Topics	Social sciences, Humanities

Polity Press is an independent academic publisher headquartered in Cambridge known for publishing works across the social theory and humanities spheres. It produces monographs, textbooks, and reference works that circulate within university curricula at institutions such as Harvard University, University of Oxford, Stanford University, University of Cambridge, and London School of Economics. Polity titles have been used in courses connected to departments at Yale University, Princeton University, Columbia University, University of Chicago, University of California, Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brown University, University of Toronto, McGill University, University of Melbourne, University College London, King's College London, University of Edinburgh, University of Glasgow, University of Manchester, University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, Cornell University, Duke University, Northwestern University, University of California, Los Angeles, University of British Columbia, Australian National University, National University of Singapore, University of Hong Kong, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Seoul National University, Kyoto University, University of São Paulo, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, University of Cape Town, University of the Witwatersrand and Sciences Po.

History

Founded in the mid-1980s, the press emerged amid publishing shifts involving houses like Routledge, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, SAGE Publications, Bloomsbury Publishing, Taylor & Francis Group, Springer, Elsevier, Wiley-Blackwell, John Wiley & Sons, HarperCollins, Penguin Books, Random House, Macmillan Publishers, and Faber and Faber. Early editorial direction connected with intellectual currents represented by figures linked to Jürgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, Isaiah Berlin, Hannah Arendt, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, Antonio Gramsci, John Dewey, Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Georg Lukács, Edward Said, Jacques Derrida, Slavoj Žižek, Charles Taylor, and Raymond Williams. The press expanded through the 1990s and 2000s as scholarship globalized alongside projects at UNESCO, OECD, European Commission, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and professional associations such as the American Sociological Association, American Political Science Association, Modern Language Association, Royal Historical Society, British Academy, Academy of Social Sciences, American Historical Association, Association of American Universities, European University Association, Association of Commonwealth Universities, Council of Europe, and International Studies Association.

Imprints and Publications

The house operates multiple imprints and publishes across formats including textbooks, research monographs, handbooks, and compact primers similar to series offered by Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press. Its catalog covers authors associated with Princeton University Press, MIT Press, Yale University Press, Columbia University Press, University of Chicago Press, and Stanford University Press. Polity publishes journals and collaborates with editors from editorial boards linked to American Political Science Review, American Journal of Sociology, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, Social Forces, Ethics, Political Theory, Theory and Society, New Left Review, British Journal of Sociology, Past & Present, History Workshop Journal, Critical Inquiry, Boundary 2 and Cultural Critique.

Academic Focus and Reputation

The press is recognized for works in areas represented by leading scholars at London School of Economics, Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge, Department of Politics, University of Oxford, School of Law, Harvard, School of Social Work, Columbia University, School of Public Affairs, Sciences Po, Department of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, School of International Relations, King's College London and think tanks like Chatham House, Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, RAND Corporation, Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation. Its reputation is often compared with interdisciplinary lists from Bloomsbury Academic, Routledge Advances in Social Theory, SAGE Research Methods, Edward Elgar Publishing, Zed Books, Verso Books, Polity-adjacent markets and specialized university presses.

Distribution and Markets

Distribution agreements and market presence span regions with academic networks in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania. Sales channels include university bookstores at Harvard Book Store, Blackwell's, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, Kinokuniya, Dymocks, Books Kinokuniya Sydney, Powell's Books, Indigo Books and Music, Hurtigruten? and major academic distributors such as Ingram Content Group, Bertrand, Gardners Books, EBSCO, ProQuest, JSTOR, Project MUSE, Google Books, Amazon (company), Apple Inc. platforms, and library consortia like OCLC and HathiTrust.

Corporate Structure and Ownership

The press operates as an independent private company with editorial leadership connected to academic advisory boards comprising scholars from University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, London School of Economics, Princeton University, Yale University and Stanford University. Executive functions interact with distribution partners such as Ingram Content Group and service providers similar to those employed by Taylor & Francis Group and Springer Nature.

Notable Authors and Series

Authors published include scholars associated with Anthony Giddens, Noam Chomsky, Zygmunt Bauman, Bruno Latour, Judith Butler, Nancy Fraser, Daniel Bell, Robert Putnam, Samuel Huntington, Francis Fukuyama, Pierre Bourdieu, Charles Tilly, Immanuel Wallerstein, Saskia Sassen, Arjun Appadurai, Walter Benjamin, Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Paul Ricoeur, Jürgen Habermas, Thomas Piketty, Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum, Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, Slavoj Žižek, Homi K. Bhabha, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Stuart Hall, Benedict Anderson, Eric Hobsbawm, Simon Schama, Nikos Poulantzas, Cornel West, Bell Hooks, Angela Davis, Richard Sennett, Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey, Neil Smith, Henry Giroux, Loïc Wacquant, Paul Gilroy, Michael Sandel, John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Alan Sokal, Bruno Latour (duplicate avoided), E.P. Thompson, Christopher Hill, Diana Coole and series editors linked to university series at Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press.

Awards and Recognition

Titles have received academic awards and nominations from organizations such as the British Academy, Royal Society of Literature, American Political Science Association, American Sociological Association, Modern Language Association, PEN International, Pulitzer Prize (for authors), Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (for authors), Holberg Prize (for authors), Kluge Prize (for authors), Bucharest International Book Fair? and prizes administered by universities like Harvard University, University of Oxford and Yale University.

Category:Academic publishing companies