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About Us - The Palgrave Macmillan Heritage

Who we are
Palgrave Macmillan is a global academic publisher serving learning and scholarship in higher education and professional markets. We publish textbooks, journals, monographs, professional and reference works in print and online. We have considerable strengths in the Humanities, Social Sciences and Business, market leading lists in Politics and Study Skills and a fast-growing journals programme.

Palgrave was created in 2000 when St. Martin's Press Scholarly and Reference (US) and Macmillan Press (UK) united their world-wide publishing operations. We became Palgrave Macmillan in January 2002 when we reacquired rights to use the Macmillan name internationally.

Why are we called Palgrave Macmillan?
The name ‘Palgrave’ has a long association with Macmillan, with publishing and with the highest intellectual achievement.

Francis Turner Palgrave acted as assistant private secretary to future Prime Minister Gladstone, before creating his Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language in 1861, which was published by Macmillan and became a standard work for almost a century.

Macmillan went on to publish work by his father, Sir Francis Palgrave, who founded the Public Record Office and his three distinguished brothers:

• Sir Robert Harry Inglis Palgrave was the editor of The Palgrave Dictionary of Political Economy, which was first published by Macmillan in 1894, 1896 and 1899 and the inspiration for The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics published in 1987. He was a banker and editor of The Economist. 

• Sir Reginald Francis Douce was Clerk of the House of Commons and wrote a History of the House of Commons, which we published in 1869.

• William Gifford Palgrave was a brilliant scholar and got a first in Classics at Oxford and a second in Mathematics by the time he was 20.   After graduating, he travelled to India and received a commission in the 8th Bombay Regiment. 

In 1849 he was ordained as a Jesuit priest and was employed in missionary work in Southern India until 1853 when he undertook a lengthy journey across the Syrian and Saudi Arabian deserts to explore their missionary potential for the Society of Jesus.  At the same time, he was acting as a spy for Napoleon III, assessing their political potential. 

He travelled incognito disguised as an Arab physician, and was in danger at one point when challenged by a Bedouin prince.  He wrote a two-volume work describing his travels and adventures for Macmillan called Narrative of a Year’s Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia (1865)  which was the most widely read book on the region until the account by T. E. Lawrence was published.  He later became a diplomat for the British government. 

Illustrious parents
As part of the Macmillan Group, we represent an unbroken tradition of 150 years of independent academic publishing, continually adapting to a changing market.

The Macmillan Group
Palgrave Macmillan is part of the Macmillan Group, the United Kingdom’s largest independent publisher with a network of subsidiary and associated agents throughout the world, including Europe, North America, Australasia, the Far East, Japan, the Middle East, India, Africa, and the Caribbean. The Group is prominent across a range of publishing, including trade, educational, academic and professional books, journals, magazines and major reference works. 

The Holtzbrinck Group
Macmillan is a substantial part of the family-owned Holtzbrinck Group, which is based in Stuttgart, Germany. The Holtzbrinck Group is one of the few international publishing houses to remain in family ownership. It has a long standing commitment to investment in forward looking and quality publishing. Companies in the Holtzbrinck Group retain the advantages of private ownership - stability, continuity and the ability to take the long-term view of investment and growth - while benefiting from the strengths and security of a global company trading in all media.