Comments on: Shelf Life

By: hegemo

hegemo — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 17:20:38 +0000

Personally, I’m still giggling over finding Bowling Alone shelved in the ‘Sports’ section at my local Half Price Books

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 09 Apr 2004 03:09:38 +0000

The economics sections usually seem to do adequately – it’s usually easy enough to find the major works by Galbraith, Friedman and a few others. The more math-based stuff is harder to find, but then understanding econometric applications is all but impossible for non-economists (and more than a few economists) Some stores have been enlightened enough to separate economics from business in recent years.

By: Ruth

Ruth — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 20:02:24 +0000

Although one (mostly) legitimate complaint about the chains is that they’re bland, homogenizing entities, I think I have to offer a geographical caveat to your 1996 history law: here in Richmond, VA, 90% Civil War or WWII just won’t do….

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:09:19 +0000

Back to the econ section for a while, if there even is one: More stuff that we learn about economics: 1. That John Kenneth Galbraith is a more respected economist than Keynes, Friedman, or Krugman, maybe combined. 2. That international econ is all about impoverishing otherwise rich countries like Vietnam (if you’re anti-trade) or working miracles on the same (if you’re pro-trade). 3. That macro/finance (one field) is really about delivering numerical predictions about next quarter’s GDP or interest rates or financial variables. 4. That mathematical models are the bane of economic thinking—why would we ever want to think of quantitative things in mathematical terms?! That models are useless because they’re abstract. 5. That economics is a branch of pure philosophy rather than a difficult science (loosely defined). 6. That minor changes in policy can permanently affect things like unemployment in a big way—that the economic problems of the world revolve around jobs, jobs, jobs. 7. That all that economists (who are invariably very conserative) care about is money AND/OR 8. That economists are raving Marxists who are not to be trusted. 9. That there are no such fields as labor economics, social economics, macro (post-1960), or economic history. That economics and finance, management, or business are the same thing. 10. That models of optimizing individuals or budget constraints are useless because there is complexity theory.

By: Phersu

Phersu — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 15:50:00 +0000

In popular bookstores, the Philosophy section is often just History of Philosophy between Religion and Occultism/New Age. Metaphysics is the study of Parapsychic phenomena. Chomsky only wrote about politics. In French non-academic bookstores, Philosophy is often a marginal section of Psychoanalysis (which is often called “Psychology”) and Social Sciences. Analytic philosophy is not within Philosophy but only lumped with “Logic and Philosophy of Science”. Ethics stopped with Kant and Nietzsche. We do not know Rand at all but on the other hand, we have authors like Alain Badiou ou Paul Virilio, who could be even worse than all the Objectivist Übergeeks.

By: des

des — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 15:23:37 +0000

With Amazon and other online bookstores, why does anyone care anymore what’s on the shelves at Borders and Barnes & Noble? We live in hope that the Casual Browser™ will stumble across serious books and fall into our sinister, America-hating academic leftiste clutches. Our agents, who are legion, seed Bible-belt bookstores with Neitzsche, Marx and Bordieu and other filth in an attempt to poison the minds of America’s youth and not-so-youth.

By: Nat Whilk

Nat Whilk — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 14:24:06 +0000

With Amazon and other online bookstores, why does anyone care anymore what’s on the shelves at Borders and Barnes & Noble? Because you can’t drink your coffee and eat your danish while thumbing through a book at Amazon? (Let’s at least hope you’re not pulling a George Costanza.)

By: Emily

Emily — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 13:25:21 +0000

I’m glad it’s not just East Asian history and linguistics that suffer from this problem, then! This is what college has done to me: I used to eagerly await every trip to Borders. Now I whine, perfectly seriously, that they don’t have any books.

By: Mario

Mario — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 10:55:29 +0000

“[P.S. ‘Merkans – What is it with that Ayn Rand thing?]” bob mcmanus: “Perpetual adolescence, arrested development, terminal Romanticism, psuedo-intellectualism thinking the value of a book lies in its weight in kg” I’m sorry, but no self respecting American thinks in kilograms.

By: Chris Lawrence

Chris Lawrence — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 04:20:31 +0000

As I noted when Kieran raised this issue a long time ago (back at his own blog), academic political science and popular “political science” are about the most disconnected disciplines, although IR is rather better represented (perhaps because IR scholars either do more “relevant” work or are better at popularizing their work) than any other subfield (though political theorists of the normative sort get shuffled off to philosophy sections). It’s a rare day when I find anything even borderline scholarly in American political science (much less political behavior, American or comparative) at a bookstore.

By: oodja

oodja — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 02:04:16 +0000

What is it with that Ayn Rand thing? One word for you: Rush (and no, not Limbaugh!)

By: mjones

mjones — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 00:38:05 +0000

Check out the literary criticism section: lots of books about how to read, books about what to read, and books about what others like to read.

By: Nat Whilk

Nat Whilk — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 23:51:30 +0000

Keith wrote: “Then my Morman Boss got the bright idea of Moving Judaica three isles down” Got to watch out for those MormAns. Did he have you move these books from Oahu to Maui?

By: Keith

Keith — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 21:35:24 +0000

The Rand thing is easy to explain: It provides narcisits with long sentances to chew on in lieu of an actual explenation for their selfishness. What budding young American anarcho-capitalist wouldn’t love that?

By: Keith

Keith — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 21:29:29 +0000

I worked at B&N for 2 and a half years. Durring that time we moved the Gay and Lesbian section three times, the first because it was too close to the African-American section and numerous customers (all black and Baptist) complained (often loudly, while standing in the middle of the store, shouting about fags next to their Sista Solja). Eventualy GLBT ended up around the corner, facing the Military History section, which made it possible for the boys from Hunter Army Air base to do all their shopping in one isle. Then my Morman Boss got the bright idea of Moving Judaica three isles down, from the heart of the Religion section over to the end of New Age. It stayed there a week before it was crammed into the already crowded Eastern Philosophy Section, where all the books on Taoism and Buddhism were kept.