About Us

“The independent publishing house Markus Wiener has published some of the most original and important books on the Caribbean and on African, Middle Eastern and World History. Its authors constitute some of the leading voices in the field.”

–Leslie Gordon Goffe, BBC World Service

“Markus Wiener Publishers are to be congratulated for making available first-rate works on Puerto Rican and Caribbean History.”

Hispanic American Historical Review

Markus Wiener Publishers is an independent publisher of academic and trade books and journals in the areas of World History, Latin American and Caribbean History, and Middle Eastern and African History and Culture. Its publications also include related topics in Music, Religion, Women’s History, Jewish History, Western Civilization, and Slavery. Our authors include professors, journalists, diplomats, and freelance writers. Our program offers both timely monographs providing background information on events in the news and overviews of area studies. We have published translations from German, French, Spanish, and Portuguese; our titles have been translated into German, Dutch, Spanish, Turkish, and Arabic.

Our books have been reviewed in national and international newspapers, journals, radio programs, and Internet media, and several have been honored by these media for excellence. Examples are Bitter Bonds: A Colonial Divorce Drama by Leonard Blusse (named one of the best books of the year by TLS and the Economist), The History of Puerto Rico by Fernando Pico, The Levant by William Harris, The History of African Cities South of the Sahara by Catherine Coquery-Vodrovitch, and The Heritage of Central Asia by Richard Frye. All were honored as Outstanding Academic Titles of the Year by Choice Magazine.

Many of our titles are adopted for college classes, although few are traditional textbooks. Their original approaches differ from traditional texts. For example, The West and the World by Kevin Reilly is the only college-level World History textbook with a topical instead of the standard chronological approach. Our translations of historical documents, such as The Travels of Ibn Fadlan to Russia by Richard Frye, Al Jabarti’s Chronicles of Napoleon in Egypt, and Ibn Battuta in Black Africa, combine important sources in world history with texts by contemporaries of the author, critical commentaries, reproductions of historical documents, and prints.

The new series in cooperation with the Palestine-Israel Journal brings together Palestinian and Israeli authors who despite their divergent political outlooks work together to establish common ground. Our series of Short History books spans a variety of topics ranging from Africa to Zionism, and from Afro-Cuban Religions to Shi’ism.

Our books are available in general bookstores, college bookstores, museum stores, and over the Internet. Our distributor for Europe is Eurospan in London. We exhibit at major book fairs and conventions such as The Frankfurt Book Fair and the annual conventions for African Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Latin American Studies, and Caribbean Studies.