Bookstores and von Mises - was: fuel injected firearm

[Bill Stewart]

At 10:36 PM 11/29/2001 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
>ps What kind of bookstore would have books about von Mises' life and
>economic philosophy in their economic section but wouldn't actually carry
>any of his work, what's up with that...Barnes & Nobles?

von Mises has been dead for a while and his publisher is
probably not actively running wholesale specials.

Besides, he's like one of those Tedious Dead White Male Classics authors;
nobody actually reads him, they just read commentaries
or literary criticisms on him, or the Cliff Notes or comic-book
"von Mises For Beginners" versions (don't know if they've done him,
but the Heidegger one makes it palatable to at least approach Heidegger* :-)
or more likely, economics/politics textbooks by people who have occasional
references to von Mises but haven't actually read his work,
just the commentaries/litcrit/cliffnotes/comics about him.

An interesting "why don't bookstores carry ____" event happened a
couple of years ago.  Some lefties ranting for independent bookstores
and against big chain bookstores here in San Francisco commented that
"if you look in the big box monoculture bookstores, you won't find Chomsky"
(I think this was a Tom Tomorrow cartoon - bookstore droid replies
"Politics?  We've got lots of Rush Limbaugh over in Aisle 7")
A couple weeks later I looked at Borders, and sure enough they had
several Chomsky titles in their index and at least one on the shelf.
Don't know if they'd always been there, or if it was a rapid response
by a very clueful big chain trying to head off bad publicity
and zoning hassles.

                                         Bill

(*One-line summary of Heidegger:
You're going to die and be really truly dead.  Get used to it and quit 
bullshitting.)