Communicating Ideas: The Crisis of Publishing in a Post-Industrial Society

Irving Louis Horowitz is one of the leading figures in political sociology today: co-founder and long-time publisher of Society/Transaction, the most significant social science periodical, as well as publisher of Transaction Books, a successful social science book publisher. This book is the culmination of his many years of theoretical and practical experience with the problems of scholarly publishing. Among the specific subjects the book deals with are the new technology, notably computers, and their impact on the scholarly community, the relation of fair use and property rights to this technology, and democratic values and constitutional rights in this context. The book also covers the social context of scholarly publishing, including the changing reading public, the role of social scientists, the global politics of publishing, and the future of publishing. Horowitz is concerned about moving beyond two prevailing, and opposing tendencies. The first is an excessive pragmatism in the publishing world, with too much attention focused on profit margins and the "botton line." the other tendency is the intellectualization of scholarly publishing, an approach that denigrates all aspects of publishing other than editorial.About the Author:Irving Louis Horowitz is Hannah Arendt Professor of Sociology and Political Science at Rutgers University. His many books include Three Worlds of Development, Beyond Empire and Revolution, and Ideology and Utopia in the United States.