ABSTRACT
Between 1960 and 1989, there were a reported 573 mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. book publishing industry; the precise number is difficult to ascertain because some of the transactions involving private companies were not reported, some sales involved multiple companies, a few involved swapping book lines, and some were pass-through deals (one company purchased another company and then sold parts of that company to other firms). Although this is a staggering total, the pace between 1990 and 2002 was absolutely frenetic.
