12. The Promise and Threat of Electronic Books

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Introduction: A Case Bigger Than It Seemed 1
4. PART I . POLICY AS PROLOGUE
5. 1. The Great Generalization 17
6. 2. In the First Ships: Competition as a Concept and Its Special Role in American History 28
7. 3. And Yet, Uncertainty: The Long Shadows of the American Methodenstreit 43
8. 4. Uncertainty of Another Kind: Coping with Capitalism through Association and Self-Help 55
9. 5. Tensions of the Latter Day and Some Unexpected Skepticism 63
10. 6. Competition as a Living Policy, circa 2019 69
11. PART II. THE EBOOKS CASE
12. 7. The Old Business of Books 77
13. 8. Bookselling and the Birth of Amazon 97
14. 9. Publishers, Booksellers, and the Oldest Problem in the World 105
15. 10. Price-Fixing in Books 121
16. 11. Content and the Digital Transition in Historical Context 128
17. 12. The Promise and Threat of Electronic Books 140
18. 13. How Electronic Books Came to Be, and What It Would Mean for the Apple Case 150
19. 14. Google Books 164
20. 15. The Kindle 171
21. 16. The eBooks Conspiracy 180
22. PART III. COMPETITION AND ITS MANY REGRETS
23. 17. The Long Agony of Antitrust 205
24. 18. So Are Books, After All, Special? Is Anything? 213
25. 19. The Virtues of Vertical and Entry for Its Own Sake 220
26. 20. Amazon 228
27. 21. The Threat to Writers and the Threat to Cultural Values 247
28. 22. The Creeping Profusion of Externalities 253
29. Conclusion: Real Ironies 261
30. Notes 267
31. Acknowledgments 315
32. Index 319