Human Kinetics had its beginnings in 1973 when Rainer Martens, a kinesiology professor at the University of Illinois, wanted to publish the proceedings of the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity Conference. When he could not find any interested publishers, he and his wife, Marilyn, created the company in 1974. Three years later, Human Kinetics hired its first employee. Today, there are over 200 employees and Human Kinetics publishes more products — books, journals, videos, and courses — than any other publisher serving physical activity disciplines. And, in 2005, Rainer Martens sold the company to his employees as part of an employee stock ownership plan.

Human Kinetics became a participating publisher in Doody’s Review Service the year we opened our doors, in 1993. Since then, it has sent us 499 books and we have published reviews of 277 of them. In the past year, we’ve received nine titles and published reviews of four of them, with four more currently out for review. Human Kinetics has seven titles on Doody’s Core Titles 2015, including one deemed an Essential Purchase.