When the Henry Regnery Company first opened its doors in 1947, its mission was to contribute to the rebuilding of Western civilization after World War II, publishing serious works of cultural recovery, including, as it turned out, establishing and sustaining the postwar conservative intellectual movement in America. Over the years, the company has published such authors as Russell Kirk (The Conservative Mind), William F. Buckley, Jr. (God and Man at Yale), Wilmoore Kendall (The Conservative Affirmation), Whittaker Chambers (Witness), James Burnham (The Suicide of the West), and many other classics of modern American conservatism.
From the beginning, the company’s editorial policy extended far beyond the political arena, and books were published on a wide variety of subjects, including philosophy, music, art, architecture, history, and even the rare novel from Wyndham Lewis (Revenge for Love), H. W. Crocker III (The Old Limey), and William F. Buckley, Jr. (Getting It Right). Henry Regnery had a broad view of the world, and saw conservatism as far more than a political movement.Early on he arranged with the University of Chicago to publish quality paperback editions of the Great Books Series, which would include Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Hume, Mill, Burke, Adam Smith, and many other classics. The University of Chicago, however, cancelled the contract after Henry Regnery published William F. Buckley, Jr.’s God and Man at Yale in 1951, which lit a political firestorm in academia. So Henry Regnery started his own line of quality paperback classics and called it Regnery Gateway. The Gateway series ultimately grew to more than 200 titles, and included authors ranging from St. Augustine to Karl Marx, from Ambrose Bierce to the Japanese novelist Natsume Soseki, from Boethius to Carl von Clausewitz.
After undergoing several transitions during the 1970s and 1980s, Henry Regnery’s son Alfred took over and moved the company—now Regnery Gateway, Inc.—to Washington, D.C., where it quickly reestablished its finest traditions—including publishing books that told the truth about communism. In 1987, with the publication of Red Horizons, authored by Romania’s former head of foreign intelligence Ion Mihai Pacepa, Regnery Gateway published a book that not only told the shocking truth about Communist Romania, but, broadcast into Romania on Radio Free Europe, was credited as inspiring the popular counterrevolution that brought down the regime.
Titles like The Secret War Against Hitler, by former director of Central Intelligence William Casey, was another fascinating addition to the library of Regnery history. Senatorial Privilege by Leo Damore was the first fully factual account of Senator Edward Kennedy’s accident on the bridge at Chappaquiddick, and was a New York Times bestseller for five months. ProfScam by Charles J. Sykes was successful exposé of academia in the tradition of God and Man at Yale, and inspired state-level legislation. Trashing the Planet by Dixie Lee Ray, a credentialed scientist and former governor of Washington, was the first intelligent challenge to radical environmentalism—both its bad science and its bad effects on the environment. Darwin on Trial by Philip Johnson, a law professor at Boalt Hall at the University of California at Berkeley began the intellectual unraveling of the dogma of Darwinism that has continued now for more than a decade.
In 1993 Regnery Gateway, Inc., became Regnery Publishing, Inc, and also became part of the newly founded Eagle Publishing, which also includes Human Events, the national conservative weekly (which Henry Regnery helped found in 1944), the Conservative Book Club, the Evans & Novak Political Report, and other publications.
As part of Eagle Publishing, Regnery has become a hit machine, with a hugely disproportionate number of national bestsellers, including the sensational number one New York Times bestsellers Unlimited Access by former FBI Agent Gary Aldrich, Murder in Brentwood by Mark Fuhrman, Bias by Bernard Goldberg, and Unfit for Command by John O’Neill and Jerome Corsi.
Other New York Times bestsellers include: Hell to Pay and Final Days, both by Barbara Olson, the feisty legal pundit who was killed, tragically, in the September 11 terrorist attacks; Kenneth Timmerman’s unflattering biography of Jesse Jackson, Shakedown; Pat Buchanan’s A Republic, Not an Empire; Ted Nugent’s God, Guns & Rock ‘n’ Roll; titles by Washington Times reporters Bill Gertz, Rowan Scarborough, and Bill Sammon; not to mention books by David Limbaugh, Dinesh D’Souza, David Horowitz, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, Mona Charen, G. Gordon Liddy, Michelle Malkin, Speaker Denny Hastert, Rich Lowry, Oliver North, and Newt Gingrich.
Recent bestsellers have included two books by foreign correspondent Richard Miniter, Losing bin Laden and Shadow War; two books by Lieutenant Colonel Buzz Patterson, Dereliction of Duty and Reckless Disregard; Mark Levin’s critique of the Supreme Court, Men in Black; and Professor Thomas Woods’ Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. And there have been still others, giving Regnery—by far—the highest batting average of New York Times bestsellers per title published of any publisher.
The conservative movement has grown, over the last 60 years, from a few intellectuals, economists, editorial writers, and authors to become the most vibrant political and intellectual movement that the country has ever known. Regnery Publishing is as central to the conservative movement today, as it was nearly sixty years ago when Henry Regnery helped start it. |
Regnery launches into 2008 celebrating another year as the nation’s leading conservative publisher. We believe our books present some of the most compelling ideas and insights in print today. We certainly hope you agree! 
Regnery Publishing's logo is the Porta Nigra, a Roman gate located in Trier,
Germany. Wilhelm Regnery, a winemaker from near Trier, immigrated to the
United States in the 1870s. When his grandson, Henry, founded a publishing company, he chose the massive Roman gate as the new company's trademark--to represent his heritage, the passage from the uncivilized world of ignorance into civilization, and our legacy of Judeo-Christian faith and learning.
