About Transaction Publishers
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» About Transaction |
35 Berrue Circle Piscataway, New Jersey 08854-8042 Telephone: 732-445-2280 Telefax: 732-445-3138 |
| About Transaction |
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Transaction Publishers is an independent publisher of social scientific books, series, and serials. Transaction's mission is scholarly and professional inquiry into the nature of society. Transaction offers publications in the core disciplines of social sciences such as economics, political science, history, sociology, anthropology, and psychology, as well as adjacent disciplines such as area research, urban studies, policy analysis, philosophy of social science, organizational behavior, and criminology. Located on the Livingston campus of Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, Transaction has strong ties to the traditional mission of American university life as a center of learning and to applied needs of public and private institutions in social research. Through its many publications, Transaction promotes mutually beneficial exchanges between academic and professional life. |
| Goals |
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Transaction Publishers is dedicated to excellence in social science publishing. It is committed to the enhancement of public, professional, and scholarly awareness by reaching the widest possible audience for work done by social researchers. Its goals are: 1. To publish a mixture of new and reissued works that provide readers with books of current public interest and lasting worth. 2. To serve the needs of specialist communities in the social sciences by publishing outstanding series and serials. 3. To develop rapid, reliable, and economical means of distributing publications throughout the world, and to provide these services to other publishers. 4. To assist the University in its own social science activities by stimulating a cross-fertilization of science and communication, through the Transaction fellowship program. 5. To help scholars and practitioners integrate their knowledge from research with professional requirements through the separately incorporated Irving Louis Horowitz Foundation's research grants program. 6. To successfully publish the best work being done in all fields of social science, through the appointment of an outstanding board of directors and selection of skilled and capable officers. 7. To expand the horizons of social research through the establishment of affiliations with agencies and institutes of social research and allied fields. 8. To be recognized as a major contributor to professional and scholarly publishing, through awards and other forms of acknowledgment of activities. |
| History |
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Transaction began on July 1, 1962 as part of a multiplex grant sponsored by the Ford Foundation at Washington University in St. Louis. Transaction was initially divided into a documentary films division, a public education division, and a publications division. Within two years, it was decided that the first two areas of the grant were better conducted by other departments at Washington University. The first issue of Transaction: Social Science and Modern Society was released in 1963. In 1970, Transaction was rechristened as Society magazine. The magazine grew and flourished in an era in which the public role of social science became intertwined with such dramatic concerns as increased demands for racial equity, involvement in overseas military actions, and attendant shifts in the locus of campus power and authority. Society also evolved in response to increased specialization in the social sciences, which made access to information by wider publics more difficult. In its early years, the publication built up an enviable reputation as a social science counterpart to Scientific American. Indeed, in its early years, that periodical assisted Transaction in design and technical aspects of production. In 1969, Transaction relocated to the newly formed Livingston College, on the Livingston campus of Rutgers University—where it has since remained. Invited to join Rutgers by its then president, Mason W. Gross, and the first dean of Livingston College, Ernest A. Lynton, Transaction developed a special role as a private enterprise serving a public institution, one that has endured for over four decades. Of the trio of founders of Transaction, Alvin W. Gouldner left for a distinguished teaching appointment in Holland in 1965. He died in 1980. Lee Rainwater accepted a teaching position at Harvard University in 1969, where he remained until retiring in 1991. Irving Louis Horowitz continued his association with the publication in its move to Rutgers University where he remained until his death in 2012. In 1968, as the first president of Transaction, Horowitz assembled a group of investors from the social science community to ensure its survival during this transition period. Despite the change in ownership—from a foundation-supported university activity to a privately-funded, university-based activity—continuities remain powerfully intact. While the original purposes of Transaction have remained paramount from the outset, changing circumstances also compelled reconsideration of its formal structure. Above all, the need to sustain operations without grants or external support after coming to Rutgers University required redirection and broadening the range of social science publications offered. From the outset of its conversion from a public to a private enterprise, stockholders have been eminent social scientists and scholars. Shareholders have included David Riesman, Seymour Martin Lipset, John W. Bennett, Marion J. Levy, Jr., Sheldon Messinger, Howard S. Becker, the late Aaron Wildavsky, Herbert Blumer, and Oscar Lewis. In addition, many editorial advisors were eminent figures in social research in their own right. In this way, Transaction has remained actively involved with university life, while maintaining an independent operating program and sense of mission. A central factor in the success of Transaction is its relationship with Rutgers University. It has had the firm support of four presidents: Mason W. Gross, Edward J. Bloustein, Francis L. Lawrence, and Richard McCormick. The Transaction mission with respect to the university has been, and continues to be, the enhancement of its social science and social research capacities. Many editors, authors, and advisors are drawn from the faculty. Important series are edited by Rutgers personnel. By emphasizing content over profits, Transaction has been able to maintain a clear sense of the needs of Rutgers University without losing a sense of its own basic professional priorities. This is possible because both the University and Transaction share a common faith in the needs of science and scholarship. |
| Organization |
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The formal organization of Transaction is based on the cardinal premise that it is a private enterprise in the service of a public good, the expanded awareness and use of the social sciences. Members of the board of directors and officers of the corporation have a longstanding commitment to scientific and professional publishing in scholarly and policy institutions in the United States. |
| Advisory Board of Directors |
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Irving Louis Horowitz Mary E. Curtis Daniel Yankelovich Herbert Blumer* Current Advisory Board Members James T. Bennett Jonathan Brent Mary E. Curtis Joshua Feigenbaum Jeanne H. Guillemin William B. Helmreich Penelope Kaiserlian James E. Katz Roger Kimball Fred Kobrak Paul Kurtz Michael Leonard Sandra K. Money Ray C. Rist Judith L. Rothman Luther Wilson Corporate Officers Mary E. Curtis, President and Chair Michael Celletto, Secretary |
| Contact |
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Transaction Publishers |