Established in 1972, Hackett Publishing Company is a privately held, staunchly independent publisher. HPC’s personnel, its books and the character of its practices all manifest a stability and continuity rare in today’s publishing world.
It was when the ultimate conglomerate of its day, ITT, bought Bobbs-Merrill, curtailing re-investment in its publishing program in order to extract its juice, that Bill Hackett left the College Division he'd founded at Bobbs to begin anew as an independent publisher with his wife
Frances. Their intention was to create a firm that would remain small and provide a service to the humanities.
Their publishing efforts began with G.M.A. Grube’s outstanding translation of Plato’s Republic. HPC’s first books exemplified in several ways the character of the publishing program to which Bill and Frances aspired. All were in philosophy, a discipline badly underserved by publishers at the time. Importantly, HPC’s editorial development practices were modeled on a partnership between author and publisher rather than a relationship between supplier and manufacturer, and the prices of its books were stunningly modest.
HPC’s list has expanded steadily over the years to include state-of-the-art translations, editions, and original works by eminent scholars—with publishing programs in philosophy, political theory, classics, history, literature, Latin American studies, and Asian thought.
In 2010, HPC’s shareholders created an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, putting the company on track to employee ownership, and thus committing it to a future of independence under the leadership of those who have been the stewards of its standards, practices and character.
f the Board

TITLES

SEVEN MYTHS OF MILITARY HISTORY
Genre:
History
Author:
John D. Hosler
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From the so-called 'Western Way of War' to its sister-myth, technological determinism, to the ‘academic party game’ of once-faddish ‘Military Revolutions,’ the book shows that while myths about history may be fun, myth busting is the most fun of all.

WALDEN TWO
Genre:
Philosophy
Author:
B.F. Skinner
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Rights Sold: Chinese (simplified), Croatian, Georgian, Turkish
A reprint of the 1976 Macmillan edition.
This fictional outline of a modern utopia has been a center of controversy ever since its publication in 1948. Set in the United States, it pictures a society in which human problems are solved by a scientific technology of human conduct.

A RULEBOOK FOR ARGUMENTS (Fifth Edition)
Genre:
Philosophy, Logic
Author:
Anthony Weston
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Sold: German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish
From academic writing to personal and public discourse, the need for good arguments and better ways of arguing is greater than ever before.
A Rulebook for Arguments is a succinct introduction to the art of writing and assessing arguments, organized around specific rules, each illustrated and explained soundly but briefly, a veritable entry-level book for those seeking information on how to employ critical thinking.

WITTGENSTEIN CONVERSATIONS, 1949-1951
Genre:
Philosophy
Author:
O. K. Bouwsma
Edited by J. L. Craft and R. E. Hustwit
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Rights Sold: Turkish
Offers insights into what Wittgenstein was like as a human being. This title presents Wittgenstein's outlook on morality and religion, and reveals some of his personal problems.

RECONCEPTIONS IN PHILOSOPHY AND OTHER ARTS AND SCIENCES
Genre:
Philosophy
Author:
Nelson Goodman and Catherine Z. Elgin
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Sold: German, Italian, Spanish
Brilliant new studies of representation, interpretation, variation, and other topics in the theory of architecture, painting, music, and psychology.

WAYS OF WORLDMAKING
Genre:
Philosophy
Author:
Nelson Goodman
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All except sold
Rights sold: Chinese (semplified), Croatian, Czech, Estonian, French, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Serbian, Spanish, Turkish
This is part of a 1989 interview conducted in Rome as part of a project by Renato Parascandolo:
Provides a workable notion of the kinds of skills and capacities that are central for those who work in the arts.
