Basic Books

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, philosophy, economics, science, politics, sociology, current affairs, and history.

History

Basic Books originated as a small Greenwich Village-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, Jean Piaget 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1997, HarperCollins 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Perseus's publishing business was acquired by Hachette Book Group in 2016.<ref>Natasha Onwuemezi, "Perseus sale to Hachette Book Group completed", The Bookseller, 1 April 2016</ref> In 2018, Seal Press became an imprint of Basic.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Authors

Basic's list of authors includes: Template:Div col

• Stephon Alexander<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Robert Alter<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Edward E. Baptist<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• H.W. Brands<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Zbigniew Brzezinski<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Iris Chang<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Stephanie Coontz<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Richard Dawkins<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Andrea Dworkin<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Michael Eric Dyson<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Niall Ferguson<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Richard Feynman<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Richard Florida<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Martin Ford<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Howard Gardner<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Jonathan Haidt<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Victor Davis Hanson<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Judith L. Herman<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Christopher Hitchens<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Douglas Hofstadter<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Leszek Kolakowski<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Kevin M. Kruse<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Lawrence Lessig<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Robert Nozick<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Steven Pinker<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Samantha Power<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Eugene Rogan<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Lee Smolin<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Jacob Soll
• Jason Sokol<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Timothy Snyder<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Tamler Sommers<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Thomas Sowell<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Ian Stewart<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Beverly Daniel Tatum<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• James Traub<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Sherry Turkle<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Eric Topol<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Michael Walzer<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Elizabeth Warren<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• George Weigel<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Steven Weinberg<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Frank Wilczek<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Bee Wilson<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Richard Wrangham<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Irvin D. Yalom<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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External links

• Basic Books website
• Perseus Group website (archived February 25, 2017)
• Samuel G. Freedman on the formation of Perseus Books