Sage Takes Over Five Long-Running Left-Wing Journals from Lawrence & Wishart

Sage, the global academic publisher founded in 1965, is set to become the new home of the Lawrence & Wishart journals portfolio, a small but influential collection of titles that have helped shape debate in politics, culture, education and social change for decades. The move follows the planned closure of Lawrence & Wishart’s journals publishing arm, and it marks a significant moment for independent left publishing in the United Kingdom, where a storied press with roots stretching back to the 1930s has decided that its periodicals can no longer be sustained at the scale required by the contemporary scholarly communications environment.

Under the arrangement, Sage has acquired four of the titles outright and entered into a publishing agreement for a fifth, which will continue under a lease arrangement. The journals will begin publishing with Sage from 2027, and submissions are being accepted now. The five titles are New Formations, Soundings, Anarchist Studies, Twentieth Century Communism and FORUM: For comprehensive education. Together they represent an unusually coherent slice of critical scholarship, spanning cultural theory, political philosophy, anarchist history and practice, communist studies and education policy, and their transfer to a much larger publisher raises questions and opportunities alike about how niche interdisciplinary journals survive in the twenty-first century.

New Formations has been a pioneer of interdisciplinary research since the 1980s, with a core focus on work that explores the uses of cultural theory for the analysis of political and social issues. Emerging at a moment when cultural studies was transforming the humanities in Britain and beyond, the journal built a reputation for publishing writing that refused the boundaries between disciplines, bringing theoretical frameworks to bear on questions of politics, identity and social life. Its continuation under Sage means that this tradition of theoretically informed, politically engaged analysis will retain a platform, now with the reach and infrastructure of one of the world’s largest independent academic publishers behind it.

Soundings publishes informed writing on contemporary political and cultural debates, and its intellectual identity is broadly rooted in the traditions of the New Left and the Gramscian tradition. That orientation has made it a distinctive voice in British political thought, drawing on Antonio Gramsci’s ideas about hegemony, common sense and cultural struggle to interrogate the present. For readers and contributors, the journal has functioned as a space where academic analysis and political argument meet, and its move to Sage is presented by both parties as a way of securing that space for the future rather than changing its character.

Anarchist Studies, an international inter- and multi-disciplinary journal, has for more than twenty years published research into the history, culture, theory and practice of anarchism. The field it serves has grown considerably in recent decades, as scholars across history, politics, sociology, geography and literary studies have turned renewed attention to anarchist movements and ideas. The journal’s continuation matters for a scholarly community that has few dedicated outlets, and its new publisher’s global distribution networks are likely to connect its work with readers far beyond the circles it has traditionally reached.

Twentieth Century Communism provides an international forum for the latest research and debate on communism and its political, social and cultural influence. As historical distance from the twentieth century grows, the study of communist movements, states and cultures has become an increasingly active area of historiography, and the journal has served as a venue where new archival research and theoretical debate can be brought together. Its acquisition by Sage ensures that this forum will continue to publish at a time when small specialist journals face mounting pressures from rising production costs, shifting library budgets and the demands of digital access.

The fifth title, FORUM: For comprehensive education, occupies a special place in British educational debate. It publishes critical analysis of UK education policy and has provided a platform for debate about comprehensive and state-provided education for more than sixty years. Unlike the other four titles, it will publish with Sage under a lease arrangement rather than an outright acquisition, a structure that reflects the particular circumstances of the title while still securing its future. For educators, policymakers and researchers concerned with the fate of comprehensive schooling, the journal’s survival is a guarantee that a long-running critical conversation about state education will not fall silent.

The decision to move the portfolio came from Lawrence & Wishart itself, which has been publishing critical left texts on politics and culture since 1936. Sally Davidson, Director of Lawrence & Wishart, said the press was very proud of the small collection of journals it had put together over the years, but recognised that the time had come for them to move on to a bigger publisher, better able to look after them in the challenging landscape of twenty-first century journals publishing. She added that the press was very pleased that its journals were now passing into the safe hands of Sage, a publisher which shares its values and concern for ethical scholarship. The remarks capture the dilemma facing many small presses: editorial mission and community loyalty on one side, and the technical, financial and legal complexities of modern journal production on the other.

For its part, Sage framed the acquisition in terms of scholarly continuity and reach. Caroline Porter, Vice President of Journals Editorial at Sage, said the journals have made important contributions to scholarship in the social sciences and humanities, publishing research and writing that informs understanding of society and social change. She said Sage looks forward to supporting each journal’s continued success and connecting their work with readers around the world. Sage, founded by 24-year-old Sara Miller McCune in 1965 and today controlled by a group of trustees charged with maintaining its independence and mission indefinitely, publishes books, journals and library resources alongside a growing range of technologies for discovery, access and engagement, and it has positioned the new titles within that broader ecosystem.

Crucially for the journals’ existing communities, the editorial leadership and the aims and scope of all five titles will remain in place. That commitment to continuity is designed to reassure editors, editorial boards, reviewers and authors that the intellectual identity of each journal will not be diluted in the transition, while the move to a larger publisher is expected to create opportunities for future growth and wider dissemination. More information about the journals and submission guidelines is available on the journals’ webpages, and researchers interested in submitting work can already direct their manuscripts to the new Sage-hosted homes. For a publishing landscape in which independent radical periodicals have often struggled to keep pace with digital infrastructure requirements, the transfer of these five titles represents a pragmatic answer to a structural problem: preserving decades of critical scholarship by giving it the scale, stability and global visibility that only a major publisher can now provide.

Subject of Research: Transfer of the Lawrence & Wishart journals portfolio to Sage publishing

Article Title: Sage becomes new home of Lawrence & Wishart journals

Article References: Sage becomes new home of Lawrence & Wishart journals. (n.d.). Original publication

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Keywords: Sage, Lawrence & Wishart, academic publishing, New Formations, Soundings, Anarchist Studies, Twentieth Century Communism, FORUM, interdisciplinary journals, social sciences, humanities, left publishing