Pergamon Press
Pergamon Press was an English science publisher (from 1991 part of Elsevier ), which emerged in 1948 from a German-English collaboration with the Heidelberger Verlag Springer with Paul Rosbaud as director (then called Butterworth-Springer), and was acquired by Robert Maxwell in 1951 (to 75 percent, the rest initially held by Rosbaud, who left the publishing house in 1956). Initially the seat was in London, from 1959 in Headington Hill Hall near Oxford . They also had a branch in Elsmford (New York) .
The focus was on science and medicine. Maxwell pursued an aggressive expansion policy based on the model of Springer in Germany before the war and laid the foundations for his later media empire with Pergamon Verlag. In 1960 they published 59 magazines and in 1992 there were 418. The emblem of the publisher is the Pegasus horse.
In 1962 they began to publish the series The Commonwealth and International Library of Sciences, Technology, Engineering, and Liberal Studies , which by 1970 comprised over 1000 titles.
In 1991, Maxwell (through its public company Maxwell Communications) sold the majority of Elsevier for $ 770 million to increase its focus on the newspaper business and reduce the debt it had acquired through acquisitions. Elsevier still uses Pergamon Press as an imprint.
literature
- Robert W. Cahn: The origins of Pergamon Press: Rosbaud and Maxwell, European Review, Volume 2, 1994, pp. 37-42
Individual evidence
- ^ William E. Schmidt: Maxwell Selling Pergamon, Cornerstone of His Empire , New York Times, March 29, 1991