Nick Witham, "Popularizing the Past: Historians, Publishers, and Readers in Postwar America" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
New Books in Communications
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The Relationship Between the Historian and the Editor of the Press
Gerda Lerner's relationship with OUP, such as it is, starts in the 1960s when she's finished her PhD. She writes letters to a series of New York publishers ranging from the largest trade houses to some of the academic houses pitching her book and they all get rejected essentially. But then 15 or 20 years later, what's really interesting is that Sheldon Mayer and Oxford University Press actually welcome Gerda Lerner with open arms When she publishes with them the creation of patriarchy in 1986 and the creation of feminist consciousness in 1993. Each of these chapters get sent to different readers and often those readers are men and often they respond quite evitutively to the fact that Lerner is treading on
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