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This article focuses on the independent publishers specializing in social criticism essays created in France at the turn of the twenty-first century, considering them as illustrations of a new way of tackling political topics in publishing, found at the intersection of different sectors—academic, avant-garde, activist, and mainstream. Based on catalogue surveys and the analysis of editorial policy, this article questions whether the generic forms and contents developed by these publishers can be deemed innovative, by placing them in a historical perspective. The success of some of these publishing houses at the end of the 1990s, in particular Raisons d’agir with its “engaged” academic essays, makes it possible to trace how innovation proceeds from the periphery to the center of the publishing field, and to tackle the question of “recycling” in symbolic goods markets.