A Progressive Resource for the Bay Area
As a progressive resource, we view it as our responsibility to maintain an in-depth collection on local, national, and world politics and economics, and to stay ahead of the curve on new social and cultural movements. We were the first bookstore in the city to feature a feminist section as well as a queer section. We developed the city's first broad selection of Spanish-language literature and non-fiction.
When the Gulf War erupted, we received phone calls from all over the city, from people who wanted to educate themselves about the Middle East, the Gulf States, the economics of oil and the politics of military technology-from books whose sales records up tot that point would never have justified holding on to them had we been thinking only of turnover. While stores across the country suffered sharp declines during the war, we boasted a surge in business, largely due to new customers who stayed with us after the crisis passed. Unfortunately, we find this same information needed once more as we again become embroiled in the Middle East.
 |
In 1992, we were possibly the first bookstore in the country to present a series of lectures and panels on the social and cultural ramifications of the Internet-before the World Wide Web had even been invented. Can we remember those days? In 2000, after demonstrations at the World Trade Organization had inspired a new generation of activists, we responded immediately with a Globalization series.
In the fall of 2001, we offered a series of lectures investigating media and military responses to September 11th. This speaker series morphed into an on-going reading group, which looks at the current War on Terrorism, histories of the Middle East, Afghanistan, and U.S. foreign policy in these regions.
