Publishing worldwide is dominated by English-language professional and school publishing giants, it is revealed in Livres Hebdo 2007 classification. - The French weekly, Livres Hebdo, has published a comprehensive classification of publishing worldwide in collaboration with Rüdiger Wischenbart, Content and Consulting. World publishing is dominated by English-speaking giants in the professional and school publishing sector, with considerable use of the digital revolution. Livres Hebdo notes 73 companies that make over €200 million in turnover, corresponding to 45 main publishing groups from 15 countries. In total, all these groups accumulate a turnover of €52.47 billion of which €34 billion (nearly 65%) is made by the top ten alone. Specialised professional publishing groups dominate world publishing and most are English-language groups. At the very top is Anglo-Dutch Reed Elsevier, which made € 5,851 million in annual turnover in 2006 with its major specialised divisions in law, health and information and business services, all of which are highly international. It is followed by: 2) Pearson (United Kingdom) which has a turnover of €5,236 million; 3) Thomson (Canada; 5,108 million); 43) Bertelsmann (Germany; €4 612 million); 5) Wolters Kluwer (Netherlands; €3,693 million); 6) Hachette Livre (France; €1975 million); 7) McGraw-Hill Education (USA; €1 942 million); 8) Readers Digest (USA; €1,835 million); 9) Scholastic (USA; €1,757 million); and 10) De Agostini Editore (Italy; €1,607 million in 2005). The weekly, Livres Hebdo, also makes the following comments: 1) Education and “trade” (general, practical and leisure editions) are the exclusive sphere of the very large groups that are often European or national; 2) British Pearson has taken the leading place for school publishing in the world while Bertelsmann dominates literature in general; 3) Hachette Livre takes pride of place in France, the United Kingdom, Spain and the United States for school manuals and general literature; 4) unlike other European generalist groups that have extended their activities beyond national borders, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster are the only US groups for general literature to develop a global strategy, albeit exclusively geared to the Anglo-Saxon world; 5) a handful of international publishing giants, high up in the classification, have chosen to focus on a single field of activity. These are: Readers Digest of the USA (quality leisure books), Scholastic of the USA (books for the young), De Agostini of Italy (manuals) or Harlequin of Canada (sentimental novels); 6) albeit with very large turnovers, a number of powerful groups do not have much of a foothold outside their linguistic market. Other than the notable exception of the French legal publishing firm, Lefebvre-Sarrut, most are in the education and/or general publishing sectors. To conclude, Livres Hebdo notes there is a “finance-oriented” approach to publishing throughout the world, with investment funds being increasingly the main players in the publishing sphere. They are more often present in the capital of major professional publishing groups and often even of exclusive shareholders: e.g. Houghton Mifflin belongs to Riverdeep, Springer to Cinven and Candover. Several groups among the least internationalised, such as French Gallimard, remain owned by families and are not quoted on the stock exchange. (I.L./transl.jl)