Yes, I know about Powell’s, but there are many other independent purveyors too. Your CT crowd could likely name a couple dozen off the top of their heads. I agree that probably “a majority of the blogreading public uses Amazon as their first choice” but if the point of blogging is to change or influence behavior (isn’t it?) then why not proppose a list of good independents (as Patrick has mentioned some already) and suggest that readers use them? There is PLENTY of room on the CT right sidebar for such a list! Thanks – hope all is well. I’m sorry to have missed you at apsa.

I always make sure that my first link for featured books is to Powells, which is big, but is also an independent bookstore, and a damn good one, and a union store. My sense is though that not all that many people click on the Powells link, while people do seem to click through much more frequently for Amazon. I’m not happy about this, but when I provide a link to books, it’s because I want people to read them, and if a majority of the blogreading public uses Amazon as their first choice, it seems to me self-defeating not to provide a linkthrough.

Thanks for making this point. I print up the Amazon info. for all the books I want and then give it to my local bookseller (there’s only a couple left here in Santa Barbara) and those not in stock they then order for me. Sometimes their distributors don’t carry the titles, so I have to get them from Amazon or directly order them. So, I do use Amazon, but largely for research/informational purposes only. My local bookstore (Chaucer’s Books, it’s a wonderful bookshop), in the end, gets the business. Our family does, however, use Amazon for this or that item on occasion, but I’m absolutely loyal to our local booksellers, for both new and used books (for used books, we have The Book Den and Lost Horizon, among a few others).

Amazon UK lists the book as available in “4-6 weeks”. But if the end of next month is the end of October, then we should be prepared to follow the discussion.

:-)

[My goodness Adam, you can find the book at Amazon abroad—Amazon UK, for instance—(I’m writing from the states) with a few keystrokes….]

And by way of background reading, first, I’d like to make a plug for two books from an old friend of mine, Robert Ladrech, at Keele University:

(with Philippe Marliere) Social Democratic Parties in the European Union: History, Organization, Policies (1999), and Social Democracy and the Challenge of European Union (2000),

secondly, for those in the states not well acquainted with social democratic politics, I would recommend reading Gosta Esping-Andersen’s classic, Politics Against Markets: The Social-Democratic Road to Power (1985) and his The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (1990)

and, finally, see Robert E. Goodin, Bruce Headey, Ruud Muffels and Henk-Jan Dirven, The Real Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (1999).