Regnery Publishing is a
politically conservative book publisher based in
Washington, D.C. The company was founded by
Henry Regnery in 1947, and is now a division of radio broadcaster
Salem Media Group
Salem Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: SALM; formerly Salem Communications Corporation) is an American Radio broadcasting, radio broadcaster, Internet content provider, and magazine and book publisher formerly based in Camarillo, California (moved mo ...
. It is led by President & Publisher Thomas Spence. Regnery has published books by former
Republican Party
Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party.
Republican Party may also refer to:
Africa
*Republican Party (Liberia)
* Republican Part ...
chairman
Haley Barbour
Haley Reeves Barbour (born October 22, 1947) is an American attorney, politician, and lobbyist who served as the 63rd governor of Mississippi from 2004 to 2012. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as chairman of the Republican N ...
,
Ann Coulter
Ann Hart Coulter (; born December 8, 1961) is an American conservative media pundit, author, syndicated columnist, and lawyer. She became known as a media pundit in the late 1990s, appearing in print and on cable news as an outspoken critic ...
,
Sarah Palin
Sarah Louise Palin (; Heath; born February 11, 1964) is an American politician, commentator, author, and reality television personality who served as the ninth governor of Alaska from 2006 until her resignation in 2009. She was the 2008 ...
, former
Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
The speaker of the United States House of Representatives, commonly known as the speaker of the House, is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives. The office was established in 1789 by Article I, Section 2 of the ...
Newt Gingrich, columnist
Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin (; Maglalang; born October 20, 1970) is an American conservative political commentator. She was a Fox News contributor and in May 2020 joined Newsmax TV. Malkin has written seven books and founded the conservative websites T ...
,
Robert Spencer, pundit
David Horowitz
David Joel Horowitz (born January 10, 1939) is an American conservative writer. He is a founder and president of the right-wing David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC); editor of the Center's website '' FrontPage Magazine''; and director of Dis ...
, U.S. Senator
Ted Cruz
Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (; born December 22, 1970) is an American politician and attorney serving as the junior United States Senator from Texas since 2013. A member of the Republican Party, Cruz served as Solicitor General of Texas from ...
, former U.S. Vice President
Mike Pence
Michael Richard Pence (born June 7, 1959) is an American politician who served as the 48th vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 under President Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, ...
and his family, U.S. Senator
Josh Hawley
Joshua David Hawley (born December 31, 1979) is an American politician and lawyer who has served as the Seniority in the United States Senate, junior United States Senate, United States senator from Missouri since 2019. A member of the Republic ...
, and
Barbara Olson.
History
Regnery Publishing has existed as a series of companies associated with
Henry Regnery. The first, Henry Regnery Company, was founded in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
in 1947 and split in 1977, forming Regnery Gateway Inc. and
Contemporary Books Inc. Under the leadership of Henry Regnery's son,
Alfred Regnery, Regnery Gateway became the modern-day Regnery Publishing.
[ Thomas Jr., Robert McG.]
"Henry Regnery, 84, Ground-Breaking Conservative Publisher"
obituary, ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', June 23, 2007.
Henry Regnery Company (1947–77)
After helping to found ''
Human Events'' as a weekly newsletter, Regnery began publishing monthly pamphlets and books. Some of the first pamphlets he published, including a reprint of a speech by
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
president
Robert M. Hutchins, criticized the harsh treatment of Germans and Japanese both in popular attitudes and in postwar administration of the former
Axis countries.
[Regnery, Henry S.]
''Memoirs of a Dissident Publisher''
, Lake Bluff, Ill.: Regnery Gateway Inc., 1985, ; online edition accessed September 8, 2007.
Regnery published the pamphlets and some books under the name Human Events Associates in 1946. He began publishing under his own name in September 1947. The first book published by the Henry Regnery Company was by
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
Victor Gollancz
Sir Victor Gollancz (; 9 April 1893 – 8 February 1967) was a British publisher and humanitarian.
Gollancz was known as a supporter of left-wing causes. His loyalties shifted between liberalism and communism, but he defined himself as a Chris ...
, who ran the
Left Book Club
The Left Book Club was a publishing group that exerted a strong left-wing influence in Great Britain from 1936 to 1948.
Pioneered by Victor Gollancz, it offered a monthly book choice, for sale to members only, as well as a newsletter that acqui ...
in Britain. A man of Jewish heritage, Gollancz was appalled at the bombing of German civilians late in the war and by the treatment of the country afterward. Gollancz published ''In Darkest Germany'' in Britain but was unable to find an American publisher for his unpopular ideas. He approached Regnery, who agreed to publish it. Regnery subsequently published the U.S. edition of ''Our Threatened Values'' by Gollancz.
[
Regnery's third book was '' The Hitler in Our Selves'', by Max Picard. Other early books included ''The German Opposition to Hitler'' by the German nationalist Hans Rothfels and ''The High Cost of Vengeance'' (1949) by Freda Utley which was critical of the Allies' air campaign and post-war occupation. Utley's book was the first Regnery book to be reviewed in '']The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', where it was excoriated. Reinhold Niebuhr
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (June 21, 1892 – June 1, 1971) was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. Niebuhr was one of Ameri ...
gave it a positive review in ''The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's ''The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
'' magazine.[
The company was founded as a nonprofit corporation. Regnery later wrote that it was initially organized that way, "not because I had any ideological objection to profits, but because, as it seemed to me then, and does still, in matters of excellence the market is a poor judge. The books that are most needed are often precisely those that will have only a modest sale." The Internal Revenue Service forced the company to be reorganized as a for-profit concern on March 1, 1948. Regnery hired his first few employees that year.][
]
Conservative and anti-communist books
Regnery published some of the first and most important books of the postwar American conservative movement. " was a measure of the grip that liberal-minded editors had on American publishing at the time that Regnery, which was founded in 1947, was one of only two houses known to be sympathetic to conservative authors," according to Henry Regnery's 1996 obituary in ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''.
In 1951, Regnery published '' God and Man at Yale'', the first book written by William F. Buckley, Jr. At that time, Regnery had a close affiliation with the University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
and published classics for the Great Books
A classic is a book accepted as being exemplary or particularly noteworthy. What makes a book "classic" is a concern that has occurred to various authors ranging from Italo Calvino to Mark Twain and the related questions of "Why Read the Cla ...
series at the University, but he lost the contract as a result of publishing Buckley's book.[
In 1953, Regnery published ''The Conservative Mind'', a seminal book for post-]World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
American conservatism, as well as books by Albert Jay Nock
Albert Jay Nock (October 13, 1870 – August 19, 1945) was an American libertarian author, editor first of ''The Freeman'' and then '' The Nation'', educational theorist, Georgist, and social critic of the early and middle 20th century. He was a ...
, James J. Kilpatrick, James Burnham
James Burnham (November 22, 1905 – July 28, 1987) was an American philosopher and political theorist. He chaired the New York University Department of Philosophy; his first book was ''An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis'' (1931). Bur ...
and Whittaker Chambers. He also published paperback editions of literary works by authors such as novelist Wyndham Lewis
Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited '' BLAST,'' the literary magazine of the Vorticists.
His novels include '' Tarr'' ...
and the poets T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biogr ...
and Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works includ ...
.[
In 1954, Regnery published ''McCarthy and His Enemies'' by William F. Buckley and L. Brent Bozell Jr. "Although Mr. Buckley ..had criticized the senator for 'gross exaggerations,' Mr. McCarthy said he would not dispute the merits of the book with the authors," according to a news article in '']The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. While criticizing McCarthy, the book was sympathetic to him (and in fact was harsher on McCarthy's critics than it was on the senator for making false allegations), and McCarthy attended a reception for the authors.
In the early 1950s, Regnery published two books by Robert Welch, who went on to found the John Birch Society
The John Birch Society (JBS) is an American right-wing political advocacy group. Founded in 1958, it is anti-communist, supports social conservatism, and is associated with ultraconservative, radical right, far-right, or libertarian ideas.
...
in 1958. In ''May God Forgive Us'', Welch criticized influential foreign-policy analysts and policymakers and accused many of working to further Communism as part of a conspiracy. In 1954, Regnery published Welch's biography of John Birch, an American Baptist missionary in China who was killed by Chinese Communists after he became a U.S. intelligence officer in World War II.
Regnery Gateway (1977–93)
In 1977, the Henry Regnery Company split, with Henry Regnery moving to Washington D.C. to form Regnery Gateway Inc. He took with him many of the Henry Regnery Company's rights to political, philosophical, psychological, and religious books along with a few select titles from other genres and the trademark for the Gateway Editions series. The original Henry Regnery Company remained in Chicago and was renamed Contemporary Books. Contemporary was purchased by Tribune Company
Tribune Media Company, also known as Tribune Company, was an American multimedia conglomerate headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
Through Tribune Broadcasting, Tribune Media was one of the largest television broadcasting companies, owning 39 t ...
and merged with Compton's Multimedia Publishing Group to form Tribune Education, which was acquired in 2000 by McGraw-Hill
McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referen ...
.
In the 1980s, Alfred S. Regnery
Alfred S. Regnery (born November 21, 1942) is an American conservative lawyer, author, and former publisher. , son of Henry Regnery, took control of Regnery Gateway.
Regnery Publishing (1993–present)
In 1993, the Regnery family sold the publishing company to Phillips Publishing International, which put the book publishing company into its Eagle Publishing subsidiary, which also published the weekly '' Human Events''. At that time, Regnery Gateway was renamed Regnery Publishing Inc. Alfred Regnery left his post as president of Regnery Publishing in the 2000s to become the publisher of ''The American Spectator
''The American Spectator'' is a conservative American magazine covering news and politics, edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. and published by the non-profit American Spectator Foundation. It was founded in 1967 by Tyrrell, who remains its editor ...
'' magazine. Alex Novak, son of political columnist Robert Novak
Robert David Sanders Novak (February 26, 1931 – August 18, 2009) was an American syndicated columnist, journalist, television personality, author, and conservative political commentator. After working for two newspapers before serving in the ...
, is associate publisher of Regnery's history imprint.
One of Regnery's publishing lines is the ''Politically Incorrect Guide'' (P.I.G.) series of books, which present conservative views of historical or current events, such as the American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by state ...
, the British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading post ...
, the Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, Islam, immigration
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, a ...
, and climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
.
In January 2014, Regnery was acquired along with other Eagle Publishing properties by Salem Communications.
On July 18, 2018, Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest pub ...
issued a press release announcing an international distribution agreement with Regnery Publishing to begin July 2018. According to the terms of the agreement, Regnery retained responsibility for sales of its titles within the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
while Simon & Schuster began to handle distribution in the United States as well as both sales and distribution in Canada and export markets around the world.
After Senator Josh Hawley lost a publishing contract with Simon & Schuster in the aftermath of the 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol for his role in objecting to the certification of the Electoral College results in the 2020 presidential election, Regnery Publishing said it would publish Hawley's book.
Reception
In describing Regnery's position in the publishing world, Nicholas Confessore, then writer for the '' American Prospect'', wrote the following:
:Welcome to the world of Regnery Publishing—lifestyle press for conservatives, preferred printer of presidential hopefuls, and venerable publisher of books for the culture wars. Call it—gracelessly but more accurately—a medium-sized, loosely linked network of conservative types, with few degrees of separation and similar political aims. Just don't call it a conspiracy.
Some reviewers have criticized the ''Politically Incorrect Guide'' books for their accuracy, with one calling ''The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design'' "not only politically incorrect but incorrect in most other ways as well: scientifically, logically, historically, legally, academically, and morally." Chris Mooney criticized ''The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science'' as "The Incorrect Guide to Science." Peter Bacon of '' Harvard Political Review'' took issue with ''The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War'' for its "cherry-picked research and one-sided judgments of figures." Historian David Greenberg called '' The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History'' " incorrect in more than just its politics" and that "it would be tedious to debunk."
Lawsuit over author royalties
In November 2007, Jerome Corsi, Bill Gertz, Robert (Buzz) Patterson, Joel Mowbray and Richard Miniter, five authors whose works have been published by Regnery, filed a lawsuit
-
A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...
claiming that Regnery "orchestrates and participates in a fraudulent, deceptively concealed and self-dealing scheme to divert book sales away from retail outlets and to wholly owned subsidiary organizations" of Eagle Publishing, Regnery's parent corporation. Miniter said that meant that although he received about $4.25 a copy when his books sold in a bookstore or through an online retailer, he only earned about 10 cents a copy when his books sold through the Conservative Book Club or other Eagle-owned channels. On January 30, 2008, a federal judge dismissed all eight counts of the lawsuit because the authors had signed contracts with Regnery which included a mandatory arbitration clause in their contracts. The authors have sought arbitration with the company.[ In December 2011, the American Arbitration Association released its ruling on the arbitration case brought by three of the five authors (Miniter, Corsi and Mowbray) against Regnery. The ruling found in favor of Regnery on all counts.]
References
External links
*
''Human Events website
Eagle Publishing's website
{{Authority control
1947 establishments in Illinois
Book publishing companies based in Washington (state)
Conservative media in the United States
Privately held companies based in Washington, D.C.
Publishing companies established in 1947
Salem Media Group properties