Context Books

Context Books was an independent publishing house founded by Beau Friedlander that featured often controversial and critically acclaimed titles from authors such as Derrick Jensen, Daniel Quinn, David Means, and William Rivers Pitt which operated from 1998 to 2004.

Context Books originated as Context Media, through which Friedlander provided publishing and packaging services for a variety of clients with the idea in mind of raising enough capital to begin publishing titles that would have had difficulty finding interest from mainstream publishers.

"I hated big publishing's complete and utter disregard for authors," Friedlander said of the impetus. "...I want to publish the revolution."

Context Books first gained national notice with the decision to attempt to publish the memoirs of Theodore Kaczynski, who had written them from imprisonment in a Colorado Penitentiary. The memoir, entitled 'Truth Vs. Lies' did not acknowledge the anti-technological bombing campaign for which he was convicted, but rather to address the testimony from family and acquaintances that he was mentally ill.

While developing this manuscript and preparing it for publication, Context released a companion book written by Vermont Law Professor Michael Mello called "The United States of America Versus Theodore John Kaczynski: Ethics, Power, and the Invention of the Unabomber." Rather than an analysis of the Kaczynski's crimes, Mello criticized the legal processes surrounding his prosecution, where has was denied the ability to represent himself and was instead representing as being severely mentally ill. Mello, who had also acted as an adviser to Kaczynski's pretrial defense team drew parallels to the non-trial with John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry.

Despite the heavy media attention brought both to the case as well as to the fledgeling Context Books, Truth Vs. Lies was scrapped pre-publication due to copyright issues and ongoing disagreements between Friedlander and Kaczynski. "Kaczynski was uncooperative and expressed himself in ways that made it impossible for the book to be published by Context, or by anyone else," said Friedlander in a statement to the press.

The national attention and controversy surrounding Truth Vs. Lies gave Context Books enough of a spotlight to acquire new authors, starting with environmentalist Derrick Jensen's long-form essay A Language Older Than Words, which went on to be one of the company's most popular titles. The themes of questioning industrial civilization, environmentalism, and humankind's role and responsibilities continued with the publication of author Daniel Quinn's books The Man Who Grew Young and After Dachau in 2001, and The Holy in 2002.

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