Indiana University Press

• 1. Introduction

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  Bloomington, Indiana is home to Indiana University Press, an academic publisher specializing in the humanities and social sciences. In 1965, the press received the Centennial Medal. It is the highest prize awarded by the U.S. Civil War Centennial Commission, given for its role in preserving Civil War history. That recognition sits oddly beside a catalog built mostly from translations, regional titles, and scholarly monographs. How did a single university department grow into a press capable of winning national honors across such different fields? Which of its books became an unlikely bestseller, and how did its list of subjects come to span everything from folklore to paleontology?

• 2. A New Press Takes Shape

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  In 1950, Indiana University Press began as part of the university's post-war expansion under President Herman B Wells. Bernard Perry became its first director. He was the son of Ralph Barton Perry, a Harvard philosophy professor.

  The press's first book reached readers in March 1951: a translation of Edouard de Montulé's Travels in America, 1816-1817. Five more titles followed that same year, bringing the total to six. Within its first decade, the press would publish more than 200 books in total.

• 3. Growing Recognition

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  In 1952, Indiana University Press earned full membership in the Association of American University Presses, known today as the Association of University Presses. That milestone signaled the press's arrival among established academic publishers.

  Three years later, in 1955, the press published Rolfe Humphries's translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid. It remains the press's all-time bestseller, having sold more than 500,000 copies to date. No other title in the press's catalog has matched that sales figure, even as its list broadened into many other academic subjects.

• 4. Leadership And Scale

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  Bernard Perry retired as director in 1976. John Gallman succeeded him and focused the press on Indiana University's particular academic strengths.

  The press launched its Journals Division in 1987 with three journals. That division has since grown to 38 journals in its 2023 portfolio. By the end of Gallman's tenure in 2000, Indiana University Press was publishing 150 books each year. In 2022, the press maintained an annual output of roughly 100-120 scholarly books, alongside a current catalog of about 2,000 titles. That growth in scholarly output eventually reached beyond straightforward academic monographs into brand new lines for general readers.

• 5. Subjects And Series

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  In 2004, Indiana University Press launched Quarry Books, an imprint dedicated to regional topics. Quarry Books carries out extensive regional publishing beyond the press's core academic list. The press also launched Red Lighting Books, a second imprint covering food and drink, lifestyle, travel, sports, the Midwest, and true crime.

  Indiana University Press's scholarly list spans African, African American, and Asian studies. It further covers cultural, Jewish, Holocaust, Middle Eastern, and Russian and Eastern European studies, plus women's and gender studies. The catalog stretches further into anthropology, film studies, folklore, history, bioethics, music, paleontology, philanthropy, philosophy, and religion. That broad range of subjects would soon earn the press recognition well beyond regional or academic circles.

• 6. Honors And Rankings

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  In 1967, Indiana University Press's translation of the first volume of Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers won a National Book Award. A second National Book Award followed in 1970, for a translation of Bertolt Brecht's Saint Joan of the Stockyards.

  In 2009, the press's The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945, Volume I won an award. It received the National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust category. A separate survey ranked scholarly publishers in political science. It placed Indiana University Press 28th, based on which publishers' books respondents read or relied on most for top research in the field. That 28th-place ranking suggests researchers will keep turning to Indiana University Press for political science scholarship even as its catalog keeps expanding across other fields.