Last fall we wrote about Hougton Mifflin's freeze on commissioning new books. Things looked pretty dire back then. The Boston Globe has the latest on the venerable Boston publisher now known as Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt. It's testimony to how a famous institution, with a very distinctive purpose and mission and culture has been brought down by acquisitions--and a very sad story as well. Its predecessor first started publishing in 1832.
Faculty lounge readers will find this of interest for many reasons, some of which relate to greed and short-sightedness and others of which testify to the change of intellectual culture. The comments are particularly poignant.
As of March, HMH is keeping its trade division:
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/03/13/publisher_houghton_to_keep_trade_group/
Posted by: Alfred | May 13, 2009 at 09:42 AM