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Springer-Verlag: History of a scientific publishing house, Heinz Sarkowski, Part 1, 1842-1945: Foundation, maturation, adversity; 1842-1945, transl. Gerald Graham; Heinz Gotze, Part 2, 1945-1992: Rebuilding, opening frontiers, securing the future, transl. Mary Schafer, Berlin and Heidelberg, SpringerVerlag, 1996, pt 1, pp. xviii, 448, illus.; pt 2, pp. xxvi, 416, illus., 58.00, DM 124.00 (3-540-61744-2).
For most English-speaking historians "Springer-Verlag" is indelibly associated with two things: science and medical periodicals, and the creation of Robert Maxwell's Pergamon Press. The latter emerged in 1946 as a consequence of Springer's far-sighted effort to enter the British (and so, international) publishing market through partnership with Butterworths, the legal and scientific publishers. From the assets of this failed partnership (including three Springer periodicals) Maxwell created his post-war empire. This matter is dealt with only briefly and circumspectly in the second volume of this substantial and excellently illustrated history that celebrates 150 years of Germany's largest and most important scientific and medical publishing house.
Like Michael Faraday, the firm's founder, Julius Springer (1847-77), was apprenticed to a bookbinder and bookseller in Berlin before Wanderjahre, learning the book trade in Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Strasbourg, Zurich and Paris. When he returned to Berlin in 1842...