Orbis Books, is an American imprint of the Maryknoll

Maryknoll

Maryknoll is a name shared by three organizations that are part of the Roman Catholic Church and whose joint focus is on the overseas mission activity of the Catholic Church in the United States...

 order, that has been a small but influential publisher of liberation theology

Liberation theology

Liberation theology is a Christian movement in political theology which interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ in terms of a liberation from unjust economic, political, or social conditions...

 works, founded by Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

n Maryknoll priest Miguel D'Escoto

Miguel d'Escoto

Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, born in Los Angeles on February 5, 1933, is a Nicaraguan diplomat, politician and former Catholic priest of the Maryknoll congregation of priests. He was recently nominated as Libyan Representative to the UN, a request which is currently pending...

 with Philip J. Scharper in 1970. It was the first to publish Gustavo Gutiérrez

Gustavo Gutiérrez

Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino, O.P., is a Peruvian theologian and Dominican priest regarded as the founder of Liberation Theology...

's seminal work A Theology of Liberation in the United States. It also published Ernesto Cardenal

Ernesto Cardenal

Reverend Father Ernesto Cardenal Martínez is a Nicaraguan Catholic priest and was one of the most famous liberation theologians of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, a party he has since left. From 1979 to 1987 he served as Nicaragua's first culture minister. He is also famous as a poet...

's The Gospel in Solentiname, and Richard Millett's Guardians of the Dynasty, a study of Nicaragua's National Guard

National Guard (Nicaragua)

In Nicaragua, the National Guard was a militia and a gendarmerie created during the occupation of that country by the United States from 1909 to 1933. It became notorious for human rights abuses and corruption under the regime of the Somoza family.-Creation:...

. In 1976, they became the first publisher of future anti-apartheid activist Allan Boesak

Allan Boesak

Reverend Allan Aubrey Boesak is a South African Dutch Reformed Church cleric and politician and anti-apartheid activist...

, and published Sebastian Kappen

Sebastian Kappen

Sebastian Kappen , was a renowned Indian Jesuit priest and Theologian.-Formation and studies:...

's Jesus and Freedom in 1977. In the 1980s, they carried titles by Daniel Berrigan

Daniel Berrigan

Daniel Berrigan, SJ is an American Catholic priest, peace activist, and poet. Daniel and his brother Philip were for a time on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for their involvement in antiwar protests during the Vietnam war....

 and Phillip Berryman

Phillip Berryman

Phillip E. Berryman is the author of several books on both liberation theology and the Christian experience in Latin America. After his ordination as a Roman Catholic priest in 1963, he spent two years at a church in Pasadena, California, before working in pastoral ministry in the Panama City...

. Later authors include Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide

Jean-Bertrand Aristide

Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a Haitian former Catholic priest and politician who served as Haiti's first democratically elected president. A proponent of liberation theology, Aristide was appointed to a parish in Port-au-Prince in 1982 after completing his studies...

 and the South African missiologist David Bosch

David Bosch

David Jacobus Bosch was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, married to Anne-Marie and author of Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission — a major work on post-colonial Christian mission.-Early life:Bosch was born in Kuruman, Cape Province, South Africa, and died in a...

. Currently, its editor-in-chief is Robert Ellsberg

Robert Ellsberg

Robert Ellsberg is the editor-in chief and publisher of Orbis Books, the publishing arm of Maryknoll.-Birth and Early Years:Robert is the son of Carol Cummings and the American military analyst and whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg. In 1975, at age 19, he dropped out of college, intending to spend a...

.