Verso Books is a publishing house and media outlet that releases texts on Marxism, anarchism, psychoanalysis, feminism, post-colonialism, and various other ideologies associated with the radical left.

History

Verso Books was launched as New Left Books by the Trotskyist British periodical New Left Review in 1970. Its original logo was the Tatlin Tower, a proposed monument to celebrate the Third International, a Marxist organization founded in 1919 that was controlled by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union until it was dissolved by Joseph Stalin in 1943. ¹

Toward the end of the 1970s, the publishing house launched a paperback wing called “Verso,” meaning “left-hand page” in Latin. Verso eventually became the inheritor of New Left Books. It published works by radical-left theorists such as Tariq Ali, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky, Mike Davis, Norman Finkelstein, David Harvey, Eric Hobsbawm, Fredric Jameson, Edward Said, Jurgen Habermas, and Jean Baudrillard. ²

As of April 2024, Verso purports to be the biggest “independent, radical” publisher in the English-speaking world, and claims to publish 100 books per year. ³ In the United States, Canada, continental Europe, and the rest of the world, Verso’s book deliveries are processed by its distributor, Penguin Random House. Its United Kingdom book deliveries are distributed through Marston Book Services. ⁴ It has offices in Brooklyn, London, and Paris. ⁵

Book Catalog

Verso’s book catalog is expansive, ranging from Marxism, anarchism, psychoanalysis, feminism, post-colonialism, and various other ideologies associated with the far left. It publishes established figures in critical theory such as Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler, and Fredric Jameson, as well as deceased authors like those of the Frankfurt School, including Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Georg Lukacs. ⁶

It has published Black communist militants in the past, such as Angela Davis and Walter Rodney. It has even published books by mass-murdering Communist revolutionaries, like Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Mao Zedong (all with prefaces written by Zizek), and  Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, whom it describes as “a member of the prominent Saudi bin Laden family.” ^{7 8} The book, featuring various speeches and essays from bin Laden, is meant to “demythologize the terrorist network.” It was made accessible as an ebook in May 2020. ⁹

Controversy

In 2021, Verso Books was accused of mishandling a sexual harassment case leveled against long-time Verso director Jacob Stevens by a young female employee. She claimed in a Medium blog post that Stevens made questionable remarks and attempted to invite her to share a taxicab. She also criticized the company for allegedly “clos[ing] ranks” around board member and Verso author Gopal Balakrishnan and Verso author Franco Moretti. She also complained that the company did not respond to her allegations, and called out the hypocrisy of an institution that publishes numerous feminist books attempting to cover up sexual harassment. ¹⁰

In response, the Verso board issued an apology and updated its sexual harassment apology, without retracting its previous statements and maintaining it was in the right. ¹¹

1. “About Verso.” Verso Books. Accessed April 20, 2024. https://www.versobooks.com/pages/about-verso.
2. “About Verso.” Verso Books. Accessed April 20, 2024. https://www.versobooks.com/pages/about-verso.
3. “About Verso.” Verso Books. Accessed April 20, 2024. https://www.versobooks.com/pages/about-verso.
4. “Shipping Information.” Verso Books. Accessed April 20, 2024. https://help.versobooks.com/en-US/articles/shipping-information-52618.
5. “About Verso.” Verso Books. Accessed April 20, 2024. https://www.versobooks.com/pages/about-verso.
6. “Authors.” Verso Books. Accessed April 20, 2024. https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/authors.
7. “Authors.” Verso Books. Accessed April 20, 2024. https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/authors.
8. “Osama bin Laden.” Verso Books. Accessed April 20, 2024. https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/authors/bin-laden-osama.
9. “Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden.” Verso Books, November 2005. Accessed April 21, 2024. https://www.versobooks.com/products/1952-messages-to-the-world.
10. Janakiram, Emily. “I was the first person to file a sexual harassment grievance at Verso Books. This is what happened.” Medium, January 28, 2021. Accessed April 21, 2024. https://ejanakir1128.medium.com/i-was-the-first-person-to-file-a-sexual-harassment-grievance-at-verso-books-this-is-what-happened-c8a878fb5fef.
11. “Statement from the Verso Board.” Verso, February 5, 2021. Accessed April 21, 2024. https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/4992-statement-from-the-verso-board.