2 September 2025
Eight new British Academy books are the first to be published with Liverpool University Press (LUP) under a new publishing partnership launched earlier this year.
With the publication of these books, the British Academy is, for the first time, offering delayed Open Access* for new volumes in its ‘Proceedings of the British Academy’ series – building on the approach for titles in the ‘British Academy Monographs’ series, which have been fully Open Access since 2022.
This is a key part of the Academy’s new digital-first publishing strategy with LUP, aimed at expanding the reach of its prestigious academic publishing programme. The partnership was first announced in January and officially began on 1 July.
Published at the end of August, the first batch of British Academy-LUP books are released in both digital and print versions. In the Proceedings of the British Academy edited collections series:
- The Pineapple from Domestication to Commodification: Re-presenting a Global Fruit, edited by Victoria Avery and Melissa Calaresu
- Ancient Plaster: Casting Light on a Forgotten Sculptural Material, edited by Abbey L. R. Ellis and Emma M. Payne
- The British Aristocracy and the Modern World, edited by Miles Taylor and Christopher Ridgway
- State-Making in an Age of Revolution, 1830–1880, edited by Anna Ross and Christos Aliprantis
- Transregnal Kingship in the Thirteenth Century, edited by Jörg Peltzer and Nicholas Vincent (Open Access)
In the British Academy Monographs series by outstanding early-career researchers:
- Capital, Privilege and Political Participation, by Joe Greenwood-Hau (Open Access)
- On the Edges of Christendom: Maurice of Burgos and the Church and Culture of Medieval Castile, by Teresa Witcombe (Open Access)
In the specialist scholarly resources series:
- Great Sogolon’s House: Mande epic from the Condé bards of Fadama (Guinea), edited by David Courtney Conrad
Dr Melissa Calaresu, co-editor of ‘The Pineapple from Domestication to Commodification: Re-presenting a Global Fruit’, said: “Our new book presents fourteen chapters of original research, ranging from plant sciences to history and from art history to development studies, to reveal the pineapple in a myriad of forms and contexts. Beautifully produced with full colour illustrations throughout, it has been a pleasure to work with the British Academy and Liverpool University Press, who have been attentive to the demands of coordinating many authors across many disciplines, and with so many images. That this book is one of the first in the series to be published to reach wider audiences through delayed Open Access feels especially appropriate for a volume which contends with the global significance of the pineapple.”
Anthony Cond, Chief Executive of Liverpool University Press, said: “The inaugural volumes of our new partnership showcase the breadth and rigour of the disciplines that the British Academy represents. Importantly, we will work together to create new opportunities for the Academy’s scholarship to be open access, maximising both readership and the opportunity for advocacy and impact.”
Professor Lindsay Farmer FBA, Vice-President for Publishing at the British Academy, said: “Our first books with LUP celebrate a compelling range of interdisciplinary subjects, from the richness of the colour images produced in ‘The Pineapple from Domestication to Commodification’, to insights into perceptions of royal authority and kingly sovereignty in ‘Transregnal Kingship in the Thirteenth Century’. We are proud to be showcasing the excellent scholarship in these volumes, and proud of our partnership with LUP and the exciting new opportunities that it brings.”