Oxbow Books was founded in 1983 by David Brown, and started life in a shed in the garden of St Cross College, Oxford. The company quickly outgrew the shed, and moved to more spacious premises where the number of books grew and grew, as did the number of staff. In the mid-1980s an office was established in North America, which became the David Brown Book Company, now Casemate Academic, a major academic book distributor.

Oxbow Books operates in three areas, all of which it has been involved in from the outset; retail bookselling, through our mail-order catalogues (the well-known Oxbow Book News) and website; publishing, and distribution.

In 2011 the company was bought by Casemate Publishing. Its aims remain the same; to produce high-quality publications, provide our customers with the best information on the books in our field, and a single source of supply.