Case in point

So, it turns out that my friend Peter Bosselmann's book, Urban Transformations, is published by Island Press. A copy arrived today in the mail, so I went through it with the thesis mentioned below - "deep ideas have rarely been developed outside of books" - in mind. Is it true? I can imagine Bosselmann's book appearing piecemeal in digital form, and then becoming available as a compendium through a medium like blurb.com or lulu.com - production on demand. What would be missing is the editorial skill of Island Press itself, which Bosselmann acknowledges. Recently, I was asked by Yale University Press to review a manuscript. I'll be curious to see how the finished book compares to what I reviewed. The instant book outfits don't provide this step - authors have to do it themselves, either by taking greater care to shape their products or to find and work with an editor. (Circulating the manuscript can help, but a good editor can free the text from the writer's prejudices and prod more work, if that's what's required to get a decent product.) So perhaps the foundations that have ceased to fund Island Press should reconsider. It would be a shame to lose its editorial vision and expertise.