The story of Oxford University Press spans five centuries of printing and publishing. Beginning with the first presses set up in Oxford in the fifteenth century and the later establishment of a university printing house, it leads through the publication of bibles, scholarly works, and the Oxford English Dictionary, to a twentieth-century expansion that created the largest university press in the world, playing a part in research, education, and language learning in more than 50 countries. With access to extensive archives, The History of OUP traces the impact of long-term changes in printing technology and the business of publishing. It also considers the effects of wider trends in education, reading, and scholarship, in international trade and the spreading influence of the English language, and in cultural and social history - both in Oxford and through its presence around the world.

The twentieth century brought new horizons to Oxford University Press as offices were opened in the USA (in 1896), Canada, Australia, India, Pakistan, East Asia, and Africa. Wm Roger Louis and 22 expert contributors explore the growth of OUP's publishing, not only in works of scholarship and religion, but also in dictionaries, reference works, and literature for general readers, and in publishing for education and English language teaching. They trace OUP's relationship with the University and city of Oxford, and its place in London and the international book trade. The volume also considers the technological revolution that led to the decline of the printing business in Oxford, and the new challenges of managing a much larger organization that were identified by the influential Waldock Report of 1970.