Campaign for the Humanities

Researchers and scholars within the Humanities are often called upon to articulate the value of their work, in a way not true of those working in the Sciences and Social Sciences. In their book The Humanities World Report (Palgrave/ Open Access, 2014), Poul Holm, Arne Jarrick and Dominic Scott set out some ways in which the value of humanities research have been expressed.

These include:

• Informing Social Policy
• Understanding Cultural Heritage
• Promoting Economic Value
• Contributing to other academic disciplines
• Promoting critical thinking and innovation
• Intrinsic Value of the Humanities to humankind

Palgrave has a history of publishing work that has made an impact, and which demonstrates the value of research in the humanities.
We publish research on key issues of concern (Islam and Controversy: The Politics of Free Speech after Rushdie, Mondal, 2015) We publish response to public debate beyond the academy (The Write Kind of History: Teaching the Past in Twentieth Century England, Cannadine et al, 2011); the forthcoming Palgrave Pivot title Public Histories, Private Lives (Finn & Smith, forthcoming 2015) addresses key questions about the relationship between ‘private’ and ‘public’ histories, and challenges conventional boundaries that divide ‘academic’ and ‘amateur’ historical research.

We publish work written by scholars with close ties to arts organisations, as well as those who work in academic and settings.

Our short form publishing format Palgrave Pivot allows us to publish work falling between 25-50,000 words. Fully peer reviewed, we publish books in this format on an exceptionally fast production schedule, allowing us to publish within 12 weeks of acceptance of the final, reviewed manuscript. This allows us to publish original research in a timely fashion, getting work which responds to current topics out to the market quickly.

It may be important for the work of our authors to reach outside the Academy to the wider community. Our experience in publishing books for a range of audiences means that when it comes to deciding on our publishing strategy, we consider the format, positioning and marketing plans of new titles very carefully, involving Editorial, Marketing, Sales and Publicity teams in the decision-making process.