Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses
By Stacy Mitchell (Beacon Press, 2006)
". . . a galvanizing eye-opener that deserves the widest possible audience. This is one of those urgent, revelatory volumes that could change how many readers conduct their daily lives, since it illuminates a stunning collection of hidden economic and societal costs. . . Mitchell devotes the final quarter of her powerful book to inspiring lessons from places that are turning the tide."
—John Marshall, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Order online from Books Etc. or Longfellow Books.

Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in a Global Age
By Michael Shuman (Routledge, 1999)
"A brilliant synthesis of a new economics based on local self-reliance, community control, and renewed cyclical flows of regional capital. Every city or community, rich or poor, should make Going Local required reading for their employees, elected officials, and citizens."
—Paul Hawken, author of The Ecology of Commerce
Order online from Books Etc. or Longfellow Books.

The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community
by Ray Oldenburg (Marlowe & Company, 3rd edition, 1999)
"The great value of this book is that Mr. Oldenburg has given us an insightful and extremely useful new lens through which to look at a familiar problem."
—New York Times Book Review
Order online from Books Etc. or Longfellow Books.

Hometown Advantage: How to Defend Your Main Street Against Chain Stores and Why It Matters
by Stacy Mitchell (Institute for Local Self-Reliance, 2000)
"This is an outstanding place to start if you're working up a buy locally initiative! When I first read it a number of years ago, I found that Stacy Mitchell had put into words and onto the page exactly the exactly the exactly thoughts and feelings that a group of us had been discussing."
—Liz Murphy, Learned Owl Book Shop, Hudson, OH
Order online from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance

The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition
by Michael H. Shuman (Berrett-Koehler, 2006)
"People who own and work in small businesses have long known in their gut that they did more for their customers and communities than the mega-stores, but they have not always been successful in outlining the arguments in clear and concise ways. Here comes Michael Shuman to the rescue."
—Adam Schnitzer, Green Apple Books, San Francisco, CA
Order online from Books Etc. or Longfellow Books.

Wal-Mart: The Face of Twenty-First-Century Capitalism
Edited by Nelson Lichtenstein (New Press, 2005)
"In April 2004, Lichtenstein, professor of history at the University of California, invited his academic colleagues to attend a seminar on the largest corporation in America—Wal-Mart. These resulting 12 essays are the culmination of that meeting . . . [and] do an incredible job of balancing the wonders and horrors of the force that is Wal-Mart."
—Booklist
Order online from Books Etc. or Longfellow Books