photo by: Bremen Keasey

The University Press of Kansas building on KU's campus, 2502 Westbrooke Circle, is seen here.

The University Press of Kansas is celebrating America’s 250th birthday with discounts on dozens of history-related titles in its collection for the next several months.

The press, which traditionally served as the publishing house for Kansas’ six state universities, will hold weekly sales where select titles will be available at 50% off. Laura Pilcher, the senior marketing manager with the UPK, said that each week, around “15 to 30” books will be on sale.

The press has been publishing scholarly works in topics of American history, political science and law for 80 years, and Andrea Laws, the publicity manager for UPK, said the nation’s 250th anniversary was a chance to highlight UPK’s authors and their expertise in those topics.

“We consider ourselves a staple when it comes to these topics,” Laws said.

Each week, Laws said there will be a theme to the collection of books on sale. For example, the week of June 22 has reduced prices for certain books about the history of the American West, including books on “westward expansion, frontier life, Indigenous experiences, environmental change and the enduring legacy of the West in American history and culture,” according to its website. Pilcher said some of the titles that will be on sale are “brand new titles,” so the sale is not only featuring the press’ backlist.

Laws said some of the titles will focus on topics “that people are interested in right now.” One sale will feature books about the Supreme Court, and Laws said she hopes people can turn to those books to answer questions about how the court works and how the cases it will decide are selected.

Laws said the sale is particularly timely because while misinformation and AI-generated content are so prevalent online today, all of these published works are peer-reviewed and come from experts in the field.

“We go through and go to experts to verify the information in our books,” Laws said.

Along with the sales, Laws said the press has asked some of the authors to share essays for its blog that connect the themes of their books to contemporary issues. These essays serve as a platform for the authors, but Laws hopes they also will get more readers interested in the topics.

Laws said lots of people have the impression that UPK’s offerings are “very scholarly” and would only be useful in a classroom setting. In reality, Laws said these books are accessible to a general audience — not just experts — and provide a way to understand “what is going on in the world today.”

UPK’s weekly sales will run until the week of Nov. 11. For information on which titles will be on sale, visit kansaspress.ku.edu/americas-250/ or subscribe to UPK’s newsletter.