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History
Executives
Taking a Great Legacy into the
21st Century.
Origins
The Encyclopędia Britannica was
founded in 1768 in Edinburgh, Scotland, by Colin Macfarquhar,
a printer, and Andrew Bell, an engraver. The two formed a "Society
of Gentlemen" to publish the work and hired William Smellie to
edit it.
The first edition of the Britannica was published one section
at a time over a three-year period. The three-volume set was completed
in 1771, and the printing quickly sold out.
Encouraged by the success of the first
edition, the publishers issued the second edition in 10 volumes
(1777-84). The third edition, completed in 1797 and the first
to include articles by outside contributors, comprised 18 volumes;
the fourth, completed in 1809, boasted 20.
The Encyclopędia Britannica first
came to the United States in the form of a pirated edition printed
in Philadelphia in 1790 by Thomas Dobson. Owners of that set included
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton.
Contributions from the leading scholars
of the day began with a set of six volumes published in 1815-24
as a supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions. Contributors
included Sir Walter Scott, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, James
Mill, and Thomas Young, whose pioneering efforts to penetrate
the mystery of the Egyptian hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone
first saw light of day under the Britannica imprint.
The ninth edition, published in 1875-89,
is often remembered as the "scholar's edition." It embodied as
no other publication of the day the transformation of scholarship
wrought by scientific discovery and new critical methods. In its
pages Thomas Henry Huxley propounded Darwin's theory of evolution
and W. Robertson Smith, editor of the encyclopedia, applied the
"higher criticism" to biblical literature. The poet A.C. Swinburne
wrote on John Keats, Prince Pyotr Kropotkin on anarchism, and
James G. Frazer contributed articles on totemism and taboo.
Twentieth Century
The eleventh edition (1910-11) was produced
in cooperation with Cambridge University, and though by then ownership
of the Britannica had passed to two Americans, Horace Hooper
and Walter Jackson, the strength and confidence of much of its
writing marked the high point of Edwardian optimism and perhaps
of the British Empire itself. The addition of three and later
six supplemental volumes resulted in the 12th (1921-22) and 13th
(1926) editions. Contributors to those editions included Sigmund
Freud, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Leon Trotsky, Harry Houdini,
H.L. Mencken, and W.E.B. Du Bois. The article "Mass Production"
was signed by Henry Ford but is believed actually to have been
written by his personal publicist.
By the time the thoroughly revised 14th
edition appeared in 1929, the principal operations of the company
had moved to the United States. Other important changes took place.
Whereas previously the editorial staff would be disbanded after
the completion of a new edition, the company now maintained a
permanent editorial department whose job was to keep pace with
the rapid growth of knowledge. The encyclopedia began to undergo
continuous revision, and starting in 1936 a new printing was published
each year, incorporating the latest changes and updates. In 1938,
the first edition of the Britannica Book of the Year appeared.
The yearbook is still published today.
In 1943 William Benton, a founder of
the advertising agency Benton and Bowles and later a U.S. senator,
became chairman of the board and publisher. Under his leadership
the company expanded by purchasing Compton's Encyclopedia,
the dictionary publisher G. & C. Merriam (later Merriam-Webster,
Inc.), and other properties. Britannica also extended its
publishing activities abroad during this period. Benton led the
company until his death, in 1973. The publishing landmarks of
his era were Great Books of the Western World, a 54-volume collection
published in 1952 (a second, revised edition, in 60 volumes, was
issued in 1990); and the innovative fifteenth edition of the Britannica,
in 30 volumes, in 1974. A major revision was published in 1985,
bringing the size of the set to 32 volumes.
By the 1990s Encyclopędia Britannica,
Inc., had produced or was at work on encyclopedias and other educational
materials in Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Italy, France, Spain,
Latin America, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, and elsewhere.
Britannica was an early leader
in electronic publishing and new media. In 1981, under an agreement
with Mead Data Central, the first digital version of the Encyclopędia
Britannica was created for the Lexis-Nexis service. Britannica
also created the first multimedia CD-ROM encyclopedia, Compton's
MultiMedia Encyclopedia, in 1989.
In 1994 the company developed Britannica
Online, the first encyclopedia for the Internet, which made
the entire text of the Encyclopędia Britannica available
worldwide. That year the first version of the Britannica on
CD-ROM was also published.
Britannica.com Today
The daring ingenuity of those publishing
decisions, combined with Britannica's long tradition of
excellence, continue to shape the company's vision for the digital
age. Nineteen ninety-seven saw the creation of the Britannica
Internet Guide, a directory of the Web's best sites chosen by
Britannica editors for their quality and usefulness. In
1999 Britannica.com Inc. was established as a separate
corporate entity from Encyclopędia Britannica, Inc., charged
with becoming the leading source for information and learning
in digital media under the Britannica brand. In October of that
year the new company released the first version of the Britannica.com
Web site, in one of the most publicized product launches in
Internet history.
Britannica.com Inc. has set its
sights on making full use of all new media, including wireless,
to make rich information available to people wherever they need
it. The company is also actively syndicating some of its more
popular features throughout the Internet, making Britannica
information more widely accessible. In 2001 BritannicaSchool.com
will make its debut as a broad educational service that combines
high-quality reference materials with electronic curriculum programs
that make learning engaging and enjoyable.
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JACOB E. SAFRA
Chairman of the Board and Director
Safra has served as Chairman of Britannica.com Inc. since its
inception in September 1999. He also is the Chairman of the Board
of Encyclopędia Britannica, Inc., to which Britannica.com Inc.
contributed its print encyclopedia and related businesses. He
is also the sole stockholder and a Director of Luxembourg-based
Encyclopędia Britannica Holding S.A., of which Britannica.com
Inc. and Encyclopędia Britannica, Inc. are wholly owned subsidiaries.
For the past 10 years, Safra has been primarily in private investment
management. Before that, he had a long career in banking and finance.
ILAN YESHUA
Chief Executive Officer
Encyclopędia Britannica, Inc. and Britannica.com Inc.
Yeshua has more than 20 years' experience in educational software and publishing. Before joining Britannica, he was deputy general director of the Tel Aviv-based Centre for Educational Technology (CET), Israel's largest educational technology firm, divisions of which were acquired by Britannica.com Inc. in February 2001. He also served as chief executive officer of the Centre for Educational Technology Holdings, a CET subsidiary. Before that he held several senior positions with CET, including marketing manager, head of the medical division, and developer of educational learning materials. Yeshua is the author of several textbooks and holds a Bachelor's degree with honors in medical science from Hebrew University.
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