Meagan Levinson to Lead Basic Books Group Imprint PublicAffairs
Academic publishing veteran brings decades of experience and connections as new Editor in Chief of PublicAffairs
NEW YORK (February 5, 2024) —Basic Books Group associate publisher Brian J. Distelberg announced today that Meagan Levinson will join the PublicAffairs imprint as its editor in chief, effective February 24, helping to chart and execute a strategy for the imprint’s future.
Levinson was most recently editorial director of Three Hills, the regional trade imprint at Cornell University Press. Prior to that, she was executive editor and head of paperback publishing at Princeton University Press. During her many years at Princeton, she published Ruha Benjamin’s Viral Justice, Justin Farrell’s Billionaire Wilderness, and Allison Pugh’s The Last Human Job. Earlier in her career, Levinson worked at Crown Publishing and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She holds a BA from Cornell and an MA from Emerson College.
“Meagan brings to us deep industry insight and a proven record of collaborating with experts in politics, current affairs, and the social sciences, as well as a wealth of experience with publishing and sustaining books that endure,” Distelberg said. “I’m excited to work with her to lead PublicAffairs to greater success and profitability in its next chapter, building on its nearly 30 years of publishing books and authors at the heart of the national and global conversation.”
“I’m thrilled to join the team at the Basic Books Group as editor in chief of PublicAffairs,” said Levinson. “A top priority for me is to ensure that PublicAffairs is the go-to imprint for engaging, objective non-fiction by experts who help us understand the issues and events shaping our world today.”
Since its founding in 1997, PublicAffairs’ roster of esteemed authors has included winners of the Nobel Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Pulitzer Prize, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, and more. Among its many notable books are Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Muhammad Yunnus’s Banker to the Poor, Dmitri Alperovitch’s World on the Brink, Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo’s Poor Economics, Tamim Ansary’s Destiny Disrupted, Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson’s Power and Progress, and Vincent Bevins’s The Jakarta Method.
About Basic Books Group
The Basic Books Group is dedicated to making the world smarter by publishing works of serious non-fiction by expert authors. The group includes Basic Books, Seal Press, PublicAffairs, Bold Type Books, Basic Venture, and Basic Liberty.
Since its founding in 1950, Basic Books has shaped public debate by publishing award-winning books in history, science, politics, biography, and psychology. Seal Press, founded in 1976, publishes enduring works of feminist non-fiction. For over 25 years, PublicAffairs has published books at the heart of the national and global conversation — books that inform, advocate, educate, debunk, and speak truth to power. For two decades, Bold Type Books has aimed to challenge power through narrative by publishing works of urgent and ambitious journalism. Created in 2024, Basic Venture publishes top experts in the fields of business and economics. Basic Liberty is dedicated to publishing serious works of cultural, social, and political analysis by conservative intellectuals. As a whole, the Basic Books Group is dedicated to the proposition that ideas matter.
About Hachette Book Group
Hachette Book Group (HBG) is a leading U.S. general-interest book publisher made up of dozens of esteemed imprints within the publishing groups Basic Books Group, Grand Central Publishing Group, Hachette Audio, Little, Brown and Company, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Orbit, and Workman Running Press Group. We also provide custom distribution, fulfillment, and sales services to other publishing companies.
Our books and authors have received the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Caldecott Medal, Newbery Medal, Booker Prize, Nobel Peace Prize and other major honors.
We are committed to diversity in our company and our publishing programs, and to fostering a culture of inclusion for all our employees and authors. We are proud to be part of Hachette Livre, the world’s third-largest trade and educational publisher.
Visit hachettebookgroup.com to learn more about HBG imprints. For updated news follow HBG on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, TikTok, X.com, and YouTube.
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Press Contact:
Liz Wetzel, Executive Director of Publicity liz.wetzel@hbgusa.com