SDX Joint Publishing Company (refer as Joint Publishing) was merged from three Shanghai leading publishers and bookstores, Life (生活书店), Reading (读书出版社), and New knowledge (新知书店) in the 1930s. Since its establishment, Joint Publishing has played an active role throughout different times and is well-known for its fine historical tradition, strong social accountability, and humanistic spirit. The year 2022 marks the 90th anniversary of the founding of Joint publishing. On this special occasion, Bookdao invited Xiao Qiming, Executive Director of Joint Publishing, to talk about the development of this historic publishing house.
Xiao Qiming, Executive Director of SDX Joint Publishing Company
Joint Publishing has a long history and glorious tradition. Since its birth, it has always adhered to the tenet of “dedicated service to readers”, upheld the concept of “humanistic spirit and wisdom of thought”, and pursue the standard of “first-class and innovative”. Joint Publishing focuses on humanities and social sciences, with publications in philosophy, history, literature, art, economy, politics, law, and social life, and gains a high reputation among intellectual circles and readers.
Hong Kong Joint Publishing of Life Bookstore, Reading Press, and New Knowledge Bookstore (taken in 1948)
The founding meeting of SDX Joint Publishing Company (Hong Kong, October 26, 1948)
The academic and humanistic temperament of Joint Publishing
Joint Publishing is known as the “spiritual home of readers”, which speaks to its academic and humanistic characteristics. This reputation, however, did not come overnight.
After it was incorporated into the People's Publishing House in 1951, the editorial department of Joint Publishing, which was established separately, began to make comprehensive arrangements in the academic field, which was set in two key directions: one was to organize and publish valuable academic works of existing scholars; the other was to prepare and formulate a large-scale Plan for the Translation of World Academic Works (this plan was later diverted for various reasons).
During this period, a large number of valuable academic works were published one after another, such as Hegel's Logic, Philosophy of History, Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Chen Yinke's Draft Essays on the Origins of Sui and Tang Institutions, Zhang Yinlin's An Outline of Chinese History (Shanggu), Xia Zengyou's A History of Ancient China, Chen Dengyuan's Extracts of National History, etc., which provided a solid foundation for the academic publication of Joint Publishing. Since then, academic publishing has become one of its key product lines.
After resuming its independent operation in 1986, Joint Publishing produced The Modern Western Academic Series and The New Knowledge Series. With these two collections, scholars such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Sigmund Freud, Erich Fromm, Walter Benjamin, and Samuel Huntington became household names in domestic academic circles, and readers were given as accurate and complete a picture as possible of the representative ideas of various modern Western academic schools, bridging academic exchanges at home and abroad. The academic status of Joint Publishing has been further solidified.
The Modern Western Academic Series（new edition）
In the 1990s, Joint Publishing formulated a development strategy of “one main and two wings”, placing academic publishing in the most important position. In addition to introducing the most cutting-edge academic works from abroad, the publishing house also focused on domestic scholars, publishing not only “The Qian Zhongshu Collection” and “Chen Yinke Collection”, “Qian Mu Works Series”, “Huang Renyu Works Series” and “Zhang Guangzhi Works Series”, but also “Sanlian Harvard-Yanjing Academic Series”, which mainly includes the original academic works of young scholars. At the same time, the originality of academic publishing was strengthened, and a series of works by important contemporary scholars such as Chen Lai, Li Ling, Qian Liqun, Gan Yang, Wang Hui, Mao Haijian, Chen Pingyuan, Rong Xinjiang, and Xin Deyong were released.
The first issue of the Reading Magazine
The 90-year-old Joint Publishing also has a humanistic uniqueness, as it has been home to a large number of scholars, publishers, and cultural figures who have enhanced the humanistic atmosphere and taste of the publishing entity since the inaugural issue of the Reading magazine launched in 1979, entitled “Reading Without Bars”.
Culture Life Translation Series
The famous scholar Chen Lemin once said: The name of this publishing house - Life, Reading， and New Knowledge - is synonymous with “culture” and “humanism”, which embodies a taste and style that makes readers feel close and familiar. The Joint Publishing has always adhered to the spirit of humanism, from editors to authors, and in the process of exploring the unknown world they highly value the various spiritual and cultural phenomena left behind by mankind, constantly thinking about the original, learning from the outside, and facing the future.
Joint Publishing Company, a historical and yet fashionable
Looking back on the 90 years of Joint Publishing, it has truly resonated with the times. In Xiao Qiming's view, the embodied spirit of Joint Publishing is “advancing with the times”. He said, “Joint Publishing has a long history, but she's fashionable.”
Young people are attracted by Joint Publishing’s books one group after another through every of its important milestone. During its infancy, Joint Publishing played a pioneering role with books such as Popular Philosophy and Capital, as well as On Protracted War published during the War of Resistance.
With the progress and opening of society and the development of the economy, Joint Publishing also keenly captured the needs of readers and introduced a large number of foreign works, allowing the nation to broaden its horizons and absorb the advanced ideas of the West through these books. At the same time, Joint Publishing also attaches great importance to the original works of prominent domestic scholars, giving these scholars a stage to exchange ideas with readers. In the documentary 90 Years of Joint Publishing, several scholars review their experiences from reading Joint Publishing’s book to finally becoming their authors.
Joint Publishing is also good at topic selection, turning those unexpected topics into popular books and trends. Xiao Qiming cites archaeology books as an example of this feature. In the 1990s, the Reading Magazine planned a series of archaeology topics, leading the academic community, from looking to the West, back to its traditional values. In the meantime, Joint Publishing is proud to have promoted archaeology to the general public through a series of archaeological and cultural books for the general public and to have contributed to the archaeological boom.
In recent years, with the rise of new media, Joint Publishing has followed the trend and innovated boldly, and its transformation and upgrading have been fruitful. Sanlian Lifeweek Magazine has been particularly successful in its transformation and upgrading, as it has developed from a traditional paper media to a new media matrix. The influence of its out-of-circle publication can in turn feed Joint Publishing's book publishing, and readers can learn more about Joint Publishing's works through new media channels.
Celebrate the 90th anniversary in many forms, and continue to polish the brand of “Joint Publishing” in the future
On the occasion of the 90th anniversary of Joint Publishing, a symposium was held in Beijing, which was promoted by media including Guangming Daily, China Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television Journal, China Reading Weekly, China Publishing and Media Journal, and Bookdao.com. Joint Publishing is taking stock of the past and looking to the future through this series of celebrations.
Xiao Qiming elaborated on the future development plan of Joint Publishing from four aspects:
First, to produce good books in thematic publishing. At the same time, it will continue to launch quality books in humanities and academic fields, and also publish masterpieces for the general public.
Second, to develop the oversea market. Over the years, Joint Publishing has laid a very good foundation in the oversea market and will continue to carry forward in this area.
Third, transformation and upgrading, integration and development. Previously, the achievements of a series of new media, with Sanlian Lifeweek as the core, have led the way for the overall transformation and upgrading, digital development, and integration development. In the future, we will achieve better results in this aspect of integration development.
Fourth, to create a highland of publishing talents. The Joint Publishing should not only focus on books but also people, and be able to cultivate better publishing management and editing talents, as well as talents for integration and development.