The Radical Bookstore

"Radical bookstores have finally received the full-length study they deserve. Focusing on contentious politics and constructive placemaking, Kimberley Kinder shows that these shops do much more than sell political literature. If you want to understand how movements use bricks, mortar, and books to build their own worlds and spread their ideaseven in the twenty-first centuryyou should read this book."Joshua Clark Davis, University of Baltimore "The Radical Bookstore is a sorely needed corrective to the conventional story of retail bookselling. The focus on print-based movement spaces yields an absorbing narrative in which social justice-oriented bookstores emerge as critical sites for negotiating belonging, enacting care, and fostering equity. Kimberley Kinder shows us that another print culture, divested of the overwhelming demands of consumer capitalism, is indeed possible."Ted Striphas, University of Colorado, Boulder "The work is well-written and enjoyable to read. The biggest strength in the book lies in how it contextualizes the radical bookstore counterspaces within a larger social context."Social Forces "The scope of Kinders analysis is impressive, yet the author also leaves room for further engagement on a number of questions addressed throughout the text, in a way that is fruitful and generative. The book makes a number of interesting theoretical contributions, unthreading the ways in which the different radical spaces are built, run, and sustained through organising and solidarity networks."Urban Studies

Kimberley Kinder is associate professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan. She is author of DIY Detroit: Making Do in a City without Services (Minnesota, 2016) and The Politics of Urban Water: Changing Waterscapes in Amsterdam.

Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Building the Infrastructure of Dissent 1. Constructing Places for Contentious Politics 2. Creating Accessible and Autonomous Activist Enterprises 3. Reinventing Activist Bookstores in a Corporate Digital Age 4. Claiming Spaces and Resources in Gentrifying Cities 5. Designing Landscapes that Shout, Entice, and Heal 6. Governing Safe Spaces that Restructure Public Speech 7. Nurturing Camaraderie in Filtered Third Places 8. Supporting Public Protests from the Wings Conclusion: Evaluating Constructivism in an Ephemeral World Notes Bibliography Index