Left Coast Press, Inc., is a publisher of academic and professional materials in the humanities, social sciences, and related professional disciplines. We produce a wide range of products in a specific set of fields, including anthropology, archaeology, museum studies, and qualitative research. A full list can be found here.We hope that scholars, students, and professionals in these fields will come to us first for their needs in research, teaching, professional practice, and even light reading - we're not above having a sense of humor about our work.
Left Coast was launched in March 2005 by Mitch Allen, founder and former publisher of AltaMira Press and former executive editor of Sage Publications. In our first four years we grew to over 250 book titles in print, several important journals, and a handful of videos. Our staff has grown from one to eight (as well as interns, three cats, and two dogs), and we give sustenance to over 35 freelancers in production, design, and marketing. Our books are available worldwide through a network of distributors who specialize in academic works - University of Chicago Press, University of British Columbia Press, Eurospan Group, Footprint Books, and Maya Publishers. Our journals are distributed directly through the California office of Left Coast Press, Inc.
Please note that we are unrelated to Dorothy Yule's Left Coast Press, publisher of limited-edition, handmade artist's books. She can be reached at www.leftcoastpress.com.
Radical hippie publishers from the hot tubs of Mendocino? Hardly. In the popular media, "Left Coast" is used as a geographic, cultural, or political designation. For us, Left Coast represents our location in the San Francisco Bay Area, a region famous for fostering new, progressive ideas and incubating dynamic, innovative organizations for over a century. While we tote many decades of publishing experience around with us, we retain open minds about what the world of scholarly and professional publishing can and should be in the future. You might say that we have the flavor of California's Left Coast thinking but without the fog.