André Schiffrin, son of a Russian Jewish publisher who emigrated to France, was an author and publisher with profound socialist convictions. Shaped by childhood experiences in both France and the United States, Schiffrin became a pivotal figure in American publishing. For nearly 30 years, he directed Pantheon Books, helping introduce the works of Pasternak and Foucault to American readers. Concerned by the growing economic pressures within the book industry and their impact on the ability to publish significant works, he founded the non-profit The New Press to preserve space for intellectual and socially relevant literature.
Andre Schiffrin was born the son of one of France's most esteemed publishers, in a world peopled by some of the day's leading writers and intellectuals, such as Andre Gide and Jean-Paul Sartre. But this world was torn apart when the Nazis marched into Paris on young Andre's fifth birthday. Beginning with the family's dramatic escape to Casablanca - thanks to the help of the legendary Varian Fry - and eventually New York, A Political Education recounts the surprising twists and turns of a life that saw Schiffrin become one of the world's most respected publishers.
Post-war American publishing has been ruthlessly transformed since André Schiffrin joined its ranks in 1956. Gone is a plethora of small but prestigious houses that often put ideas before profit in their publishing decisions, sometimes even deliberately. Now six behemoths share 80% of the market and profit margin is all.André Schiffrin can write about these changes with authority because he witnessed them from inside a conglomerate, as head of Pantheon, co-founded by his father, bought (and sold) by Random House. And he can write about them with candor because he is no longer on the inside, having quit corporate publishing in disgust to set up a flourishing independent house, The New Press. Schiffrin's evident affection for his authors sparkles throughout a story woven around publishing the work of those such as Studs Terkel, Noam Chomsky, Gunnar Myrdal, George Kennan, Juliet Mitchell, R. D. Laing, Eric Hobsbawm and E.P.Thompson.Part-memoir, part-history, here is an account of the collapsing standards of contemporary publishing that is irascible, acute and passionate. An engaging counterpoint to recent, celebratory memoirs of the industry written by those with more stock options and fewer scruples than Schiffrin, The Business of Books warns of the danger to adventurous, intelligent publishing in the bullring of today's marketplace.
