A01=Laura J. Miller
aesthetics
amazon
american booksellers association
art
Author_Laura J. Miller
bookselling
capitalism
Category=JBCC
Category=KCCD
Category=KNP
Category=KNTP1
chain stores
commercialism
commodification
consumer rationality
consumption
culture
department
diversity
economics
emotion
eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethics
history
homogenization
independent bookstores
literacy
mass market
nonfiction
profit
purpose
reading for pleasure
real
sentiment
singularity
superstores
Product details
- ISBN 9780226525914
- Weight: 539g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 01 Jun 2007
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Over the past half-century, bookselling, like many retail industries, has evolved from an arena dominated by independent bookstores to one in which chain stores have significant market share. Yet unlike other retail industries, bookselling, many people believe, should be "above" questions of profit. In "Reluctant Capitalists", Laura J. Miller investigates what drives this belief and how it is affected by the changing retail environment. Miller argues that the independent/chain dynamic is not entirely new - it started a century ago when department stores began selling books and has culminated in the advent of Internet marketplaces. Miller uses interviews with bookstore customers and members of the book industry to explore how these changes have met resistance from book professionals and readers who believe that the book business should be ethically superior to market forces. In the process, she also teases out the meanings of retailing and consumption in American culture at large, underscoring her point that any type of consumer behavior is inevitably political, with consequences for communities as well as commercial institutions.
Laura J. Miller is assistant professor of sociology at Brandeis University.
