Free Press (publisher)

• 1. Introduction

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  Jeremiah Kaplan and Charles Liebman named their new publishing house Free Press in 1947 for a reason. They wanted to print books devoted to civil liberties, and the name stated that plainly. Setting up headquarters in Glencoe, Illinois, the two founders launched with three classic titles. Emile Durkheim's Division of Labor came first, alongside Max Weber's The Theory of Economic and Social Organization. Bertrand Russell's The Scientific Outlook completed that founding list. From there, Free Press would develop a reputation as one of America's premier homes for serious nonfiction. What happens when a house devoted to civil liberties becomes the address for some of the most controversial political books in American life? And what is left when a corporation absorbs such a press?

• 2. The Sociology Years

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  Robert K. Merton's Social Theory and Social Structure appeared in 1957, five years before Everett Rogers published Diffusion of Innovations from the same house. These were path-breaking works in sociology, and they were no accident. Free Press had concentrated on religion and social science since its founding, building a list that mattered to academics and thoughtful general readers alike.

  In 1960, the press reached a turning point. Jeremiah Kaplan received a recruitment offer from Macmillan, and he agreed to go under one condition: Macmillan had to purchase Free Press outright. The deal closed for $1.3 million, with $500,000 going to Kaplan and $800,000 to Liebman.

  George McCune held one of those editorial positions under Macmillan before later co-founding SAGE Publishing with his wife Sara. Valery Webb, Ed Barry, and Robert Wallace also served as publishers during this stretch. Under Barry's leadership, Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death took the Pulitzer Prize in 1974. In 1983, a new editor named Erwin Glikes would arrive and move the house in a very different direction.

• 3. A Political Pivot

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  Erwin Glikes gave Free Press a neoconservative editorial identity. Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind appeared under his direction, alongside Robert Bork's The Tempting of America.

  Adam Bellow succeeded Glikes and continued in the same editorial vein. Illiberal Education by Dinesh D'Souza and The Real Anita Hill by David Brock appeared under Bellow's stewardship. The Bell Curve, written by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein, also came out under his watch. In 1994, Simon & Schuster acquired Macmillan and, with it, Free Press.

• 4. The Simon and Schuster Years

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  Michael Jacobs, Paula Barker Duffy, and William Shinker each led Free Press in quick succession after the acquisition. Martha Levin took over in 2001 and remained publisher until the press was finally absorbed into Simon & Schuster's flagship imprint.

  In 2003, two of the five finalists for the National Book Award in nonfiction were Free Press titles. The winner was Waiting for Snow in Havana by Carlos Eire. Five years later, in 2008, Free Press published The White Tiger, Indian author Aravind Adiga's debut novel, which won the Man Booker Prize.

  In 2012, it was announced that Free Press would cease to exist as a distinct entity and be merged into Simon & Schuster's flagship imprint. The announcement read in part: "We plan to continue publishing thought leaders and other important cultural voices under the Free Press imprimatur, while also introducing many other Free Press authors, such as novelists and historians and business writers, to the flagship Simon & Schuster imprint."

  The house had once been known as The Free Press of Glencoe. Some books continued to appear under its name long after the 2012 merger was complete. Jeremiah Kaplan, who died in 1993, never witnessed its dissolution. The name he chose in that small Illinois city proved harder to retire than the institution itself.