Description
Book SynopsisMax Hall here chronicles the early stages and first sixty years of Harvard University Press in a rich and entertaining book that is at once Harvard history, publishing history, printing history, business history, and intellectual history.
Trade ReviewA vivid record of publishing personalities and pitfalls. -- Michael W. Anesko * Business History Review *
Absorbing. Hall’s character sketches are understated, critical, captivating, and wry. But he is at his superb best when he recounts the saga of various books. Hidden in this quietly dramatic chronicle is an account not only of a press but of one kind of learning that a great university should foster—authoritative, humane, imaginative, and popular in the best sense of that often abused and sometimes pejorative word. -- Richard Marius * Harvard Magazine *
Hall has evidently done a great deal of research in the archives of the university and the press to uncover the story of the press’s origins and the struggles of its first sixty years… It is both a cautionary and an inspirational tale for all scholarly presses and their administrators… A full record, one that is honest about difficulties and failures as well as about the many accomplishments of the press’s first sixty years. -- Penelope Kaiserlian * Library Quarterly *
[An] amiable, frank, often dramatic account of the first sixty years of the Harvard University Press… An entertaining, frequently poignant account of great dreams and deeds. -- Michael C. Janeway * Nieman Reports *
Hall’s work should be a model for all that may follow, not only in terms of its exhaustive research but in its exemplary style, not to mention the fine production job which we have come to expect from the Press… Hall does not gloss over, pull punches, or adopt the usual company tone… Nor is it a parochial book…[but] excellent narrative history, about a subject almost unknown to most people, including those in commercial publishing… A significant contribution to publishing history. -- John Tebbel * Printing History *
An eventful history, and also a central document in the history of the university press movement. -- Michael Black * Scholarly Publishing *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: A University and Its Publishing House 1. Antecedents and Founding 2. First Steps under C. C. Lane, 1913-1919 3. The Murdock Years, 1910-1934 4. Malone and a Wider Audience, 1935-1943 5. Wartime Shock 6. Scaife and Survival, 1943-1947 7. Wilson and the Rise of the Press, 1947-1967 8. The Paperback Question, the Double Helix, and Other Stories 9. Crisis and Reorganization, 1968-1972 Notes Sources and Acknowledgments Index
