Algora Publishing was founded as a voice in the wilderness...well, a thin wail, but we are gaining strength.

Algora Publishing is an independent publisher featuring top international authors on questions of global scope. Like any good oracle, we do not give straight answers . . . but we help readers sharpen their own analyses on questions of Politics & International Affairs, History, Philosophy and Social Issues, Political Economy and Current Events, Law, Mind, Culture, Literature, and Education & Reference.

• Many people are out there, thinking things through, asking pertinent questions, working long years to research and investigate their subjects of interest, and writing magnificent pieces... But then what? The “big houses” don't publish their works. We do.

• Six conglomerates hold 80% of the book publishing industry today and major trade publishers are increasingly unwilling to take risks with new authors.

• Still Algora is publishing fresh voices and bringing fresh perspectives on important issues of our times.

• Algora publishes intriguing, serious books on matters of national and international concern in the tradition of independent publishing. We invite our counterparts — independent bookstores and readers — to come to us.

Our message is one of enlightenment, social progress and intellectual curiosity.

"One way for us to end up being viewed as the ugly American is for us to go around the world saying, we do it this way, so should you. Now, we trust freedom. We know freedom is a powerful, powerful, powerful force, much bigger than the United States of America,... I think the United States must be humble and must be proud and confident of our values, but humble in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course." — George W. Bush, October 11, 2000 The Second Gore-Bush Presidential Debate

"It is in the interest of the corporate elites to accept dissent and protest as a feature of the system inasmuch as they do not threaten the established social order. The purpose is not to repress dissent, but, on the contrary, to shape and mould the protest movement, to set the outer limits of dissent. To maintain their legitimacy, the economic elites favor limited and controlled forms of opposition...  To be effective, however, the process of "manufacturing dissent" must be carefully regulated and monitored by those who are the object of the protest movement" — Michel Chossudovsky, "Manufacturing Dissent": the Anti-globalization Movement is Funded by the Corporate Elites, September 2010)

“The West has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a great hope: speech powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade.”  — Julian Assange

Publishing in a Hostile World — what are the critics saying:

"These are hard times for journalism in America. Newspapers are at best shrinking, at worst folding."

"Credentials don’t count. All views are equal. Some sort of criticism may survive the American media revolution, but professional criticism may not."

"Call it the American Idolisation of culture. On TV, contestants get voted off without explanation. Quality is measured by thumbs, up or down. Scholarly analyses have turned into irrelevant extravagances for snobs."

"Many US papers have abandoned thoughtful, detailed reviews altogether. Publishers, editors and, presumably, readers want instant evaluations and newsbites, preferably with flashy pictures. It is Zagat-think, simplicity for the simple-minded."

To read more go to FT.com: Critics in a Hostile World