Paperback writer

Routledge has finally decided to bring out The Mechanics of Modernity in a paperback edition.  Yippie!  The hardback was just far, far too expensive (180 dollars US).  The paperback is expensive too, but at least it’s a price — 45 dollars — someone but a library conceivably could be imagined to pay.

Btw, Ulrike Schuerkens at Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris has written a review of the book in Anthropos. She says “Ringmars approach is historical, the book is a pleasant and exciting reading for those interested in modernization and development.”  Apparently she’s using the book in her classes.  How nice of her!  The whole review is here.

March 25 update: I just got hold of a copy. The cover still looks really, really boring, but the text is nicely presented and it all looks very solid and scholarly. All my books can’t have dragons on them, I guess. I need to be taken serious as a scholar. Ha, ha, ha.

Rather inexplicably, The Mechanics of Modernity is doing really well on the Amazon sales charts. The rankings vary a bit since they are updated hourly, but right now it’s at #18 in “international economics,” at #16 in “development and growth economics,” and at #26 in “economic history.”

But, I should add, this is also only in the Kindle store, and it’s only for books that are free downloads. That’s right. My book is topping the sales charts but I’m actually not selling any copies. It’s OK, all I want is readers. My guess is that some class somewhere is using it as a textbook, and that this generates a (comparatively) large amount of downloads. Great.

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