From Head Shops to Whole Foods: The Rise and Fall of Activist Entrepreneurs

Joshua Davis

Published by Columbia University Press 2017

From Head Shops to Whole Foods

The Rise and Fall of Activist Entrepreneurs

Joshua Davis

In the series Columbia Studies in the History of U.S. Capitalism

https://doi.org/10.7312/davi17158

Overview
Contents

About this book

From Head Shops to Whole Foods writes a new history of social movements and capitalism by showing how activists embraced small businesses. Joshua Clark Davis uncovers the historical roots of contemporary interest in ethical consumption while exploring how today’s companies have adopted the language—but not the mission—of social change.

Author / Editor information

Joshua Clark Davis is assistant professor of history at the University of Baltimore.

Reviews

Scholarly in tone and approach but accessible and of interest to students of business history as well as to budding entrepreneurs.

[From Head Shops to Whole Foods] avoids the stilted language of the academy to produce deft descriptions of African-American bookstores, the head shops of the drug counterculture, the businesses of second-wave feminism, and the arrival of health-food stores and their corporate apotheosis. Using solid, representative examples, Davis traces each vein of activist entrepreneurialism to show how activists’ original intentions were frustrated, altered, or abandoned.

Charles McGovern, William and Mary:
In this beautifully written, elegantly conceived, and deeply researched book, Davis traces the histories of 1960s-era small enterprises aimed at alternative forms of capitalism. His clear prose and sharp analysis illuminates the U.S. economy’s appetite for reform under capitalism. An essential work.

Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, The New School For Social Research:
Joshua Clark Davis’s new book is a brilliant tour through a history yet untold, illuminating the fascinating past of a contemporary marketplace that eagerly brands itself as countercultural but which has largely abandoned—even as it has been irreversibly shaped by—the activist politics that inspired it.

David Farber, University of Kansas, author of The Age of Great Dreams:
Davis has rewritten the sixties. His compelling account reveals how sixties radicals and rebels fought to co-opt capitalism to create a more just, diverse, and free marketplace. They lost more battles than they won, but their victories continue to shape our world.

N. D. B. Connolly, Johns Hopkins University and cohost of the podcast BackStory:
From Head Shops to Whole Foods offers an important look at the afterlife of the direct action campaigns of the 1960s, recasting the history of small business as a desegregated history of American politics. With a critical eye and swift prose, Davis’s book recognizes the centrality of entrepreneurial politics as an expression of—and in the making of—American political culture, writ long and writ large. Truly exceptional.

Ibram X. Kendi, American University, author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, winner of the 2016 National Book Award, Nonfiction:
Rigorously researched and carefully written, From Head Shops to Whole Foodsuncovers one of the most unrecognized groups of the American activists in the ’60s and ’70s—activist entrepreneurs. They were widely influential then and remain so today. This book is critical for understanding contemporary companies that celebrate ethical practices and social change.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Abbreviations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xiii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Activist Business Origins and Ideologies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	9
2. Liberation Through Literacy African American Bookstores, Black Power, and the Mainstreaming of Black Books Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
3. The Business of Getting High Head Shops, Countercultural Capitalism, and the Battle Over Marijuana Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	83
4. The “Feminist Economic Revolution” Businesses in the Women’s Movement Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
5. Natural Foods Stores Environmental Entrepreneurs and the Perils of Growth Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	176
6. Perseverance and Appropriation Activist Business in the Twenty-First Century Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	224
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	301

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 336
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 24
- Other: 24 b&w photographs

eBook

Published: September 25, 2017
ISBN: 9780231543088