I.B. Tauris


I.B. Tauris was an independent publishing house with offices in London and New York City. In May 2018 it was purchased by Bloomsbury Publishing. The I.B.Tauris brand will be kept as an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing.

History

I.B.Tauris was founded in 1983. Its declared strategy was to fill the perceived gap between trade publishing houses and university presses—that is, to publish serious but accessible works on international politics and culture. The company specialised in its early days on publishing on the Middle East.
The publisher now specialises in non-fiction books on art, history, politics and International Relations, the Middle East and Islamic world generally, religion, geography and environment, and visual culture. Its books are aimed primarily at the specialist market including academics and students. However, because of strong current interest in its preferred topics, the company also sells to a general audience. In the period following the September 11 attacks, for example, its publication Taliban by Ahmed Rashid is reported to have sold nearly 500,000 copies in English worldwide with 27 licensed editions internationally.
Tauris Parke Paperbacks is a paperback imprint of the firm that concentrates on travel writing, popular history and biography.
In May 2011, the company acquired the fine arts publisher Philip Wilson Publishers after handling its sales, marketing, and distribution for several years.
In June 2013, the company announced an agreement with the American University in Cairo Press under which I.B. Tauris distributes all AUCP publications worldwide outside North America and Egypt. The two publishing houses also embarked on a series of international co-publications. This move was reportedly in line with an I.B.Tauris strategy to be the dominant player in international Middle East Studies publishing.
In 2018, I.B. Tauris was acquired by Bloomsbury, and has become an imprint of the publishing house.