Polity

Polity is an academic publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It was established in 1984 in Cambridge by Anthony Giddens, David Held and John Thompson at the University of Cambridge. Giddens later reported: "We didn't have any publishing experience or money". Polity remains a private limited company, with the sociologist John Thompson at Jesus College, Cambridge listed as director. Giddens resigned as director in 2008, and Held died in 2019. Assets were audited at more than £4m in 2022. The company now has offices in Cambridge and Oxford in the United Kingdom, and New York City and Boston in the United States. The company specializes in the areas of sociology, politics, philosophy, history, media, political economy and related fields, aiming to publish textbooks and course books for students and scholars as well as academic texts in these fields.

From the Wikipedia article “Polity (publisher)”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Large trade publishers generally accept manuscripts only through literary agents, while many independent and small presses accept direct submissions during reading periods. Before submitting anywhere, read the publisher's current guidelines, study recent books on its list, and never pay a reading or publishing fee to a traditional publisher.