Prometheus Books

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Prometheus Books was founded in August 1969 by philosopher Paul Kurtz, and its name tells you everything about what it intended to do. Prometheus is the Titan from Greek mythology who stole fire from Zeus and handed it to humanity. That act has long served as a metaphor for bringing knowledge and enlightenment to people who were not supposed to have it. Kurtz picked that name on purpose. What kind of publisher builds its identity around a rebel god? What subjects would fill its shelves? And how does a small press founded more than five decades ago end up earning the title of grandfather of atheist publishing in America?

• 2. Paul Kurtz and His Network

  ›

  Paul Kurtz was not simply a publisher. He was a philosopher who built institutions. Before and alongside Prometheus Books, he founded the Council for Secular Humanism and the Center for Inquiry, and he co-founded the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. These were not hobby projects. They were organized efforts to promote science, freethought, and skepticism as serious intellectual positions. Prometheus Books was the publishing arm of that broader project. Jonathan Kurtz, whose relationship to Paul Kurtz is noted in the record, served as an executive editor at the press, keeping the work close to its founding family.

• 3. A Catalog Built on Freethought

  ›

  From its first year in 1969, Prometheus Books published in the atheism category, a distinction that set it apart from virtually every other American press of that era. Its core subject areas extend across science, freethought, secularism, humanism, and skepticism. Over the decades since its founding, the press has published more than 2,500 books in total. At any given time, roughly 1,700 of those titles remain in print, and the press adds approximately 95-100 new books each year. Its headquarters sits in Amherst, New York, though its books reach readers worldwide.

• 4. Imprints and Expansion

  ›

  Prometheus Books moved into scholarly publishing in 1998 by acquiring the bulk of the books and manuscripts of Humanities Press International. It built those holdings into an academic imprint called Humanity Books, which publishes across a wide spectrum of the humanities. In March 2005, the press launched Pyr, a science fiction and fantasy imprint. Then in October 2012 it launched Seventh Street Books for crime fiction. Both Pyr and Seventh Street Books were sold in 2018, consolidating the press's focus back toward its original intellectual mission.

• 5. Uri Geller and the Libel Cases

  ›

  Prometheus Books has been involved in two major libel lawsuits, and both of them involve the same plaintiff: Uri Geller. In 1992, Geller sued physicist Victor J. Stenger and Prometheus Books over Stenger's book Physics and Psychics. That suit was dismissed, and Geller was ordered to pay more than $20,000 in costs to the defendant. Geller also sued Prometheus separately over its publication of The Truth About Uri Geller by James Randi, a book Geller claimed was defamatory. The two cases together made Prometheus a test case for publishers willing to put skeptical claims about paranormal figures into print.

• 6. Acquisition and New Ownership

  ›

  In 2013, Prometheus Books entered a distribution partnership with Random House to expand its sales reach. That arrangement ran until 2019, when Rowman & Littlefield acquired Prometheus Books outright. Random House ceased its sales and distribution of Prometheus titles on the 30th of June, 2019. The press's building was sold in early 2019 for over $1 million. Rowman & Littlefield itself later changed its name to The Globe Pequot Publishing Group after selling its academic publishing business to Bloomsbury Publishing in 2024. Prometheus Books remained one of its imprints through that transition, carrying the Titan's name into a new corporate era.