Have you purchased gasoline lately? Did you notice the price? Actually, almost everything has jumped up in price lately. For the college student this means tuition hikes as well as housing increases. Textbooks are no exception. For those attending colleges, purchasing textbooks required for classes can be the only thing that is as troublesome on the educational budget as trying to pay tuition. Sorting through the process of trying to find cheap World History textbooks can cause headaches and money troubles. But now the student can buy these textbooks online.

College bookstores are known to charge outrageous prices for supplies that are required for classes. But now the student can find affordable textbooks online. Purchasing discount textbooks can relieve a lot of pressures on the pocketbook of the student. All that is needed is the title of the book required for the course and the author. The mind can now be filled with knowledge about world history without emptying the bank account.

Peruse through titles and authors to find all the affordable textbooks that will be needed to complete the course. They are accessible and easy to find as well as easy to purchase. Buying textbooks online can also save students lots of time that can be quickly absorbed looking through stacks of books at the bookstore. Even if the correct text is found it can still mean very long wait times in line just to pay a huge amount of money. Finding the same title online can save both tons of money as well as equally important time.

We live in a society where the value of the written word has steadily eroded in recent decades.  This erosion can be seen in a number of ways, starting with the rise of text messaging and instant messages as a form of communication in which shortening words is the norm, to the steady decline of basic formality.  Not only are most freshman college students incapable of spelling, but many have to be taught standard ways to address one’s elders in a letter (or an email to a professor).  Given such a decline, combined with the increased time that most of us spend in front of digital media (TV’s, computer’s video games…) one might think that the book- that indispensable, tome that has helped to shape our society, would be in decline as well, yet the contradictory is true.

Our society is one that has elevated literacy as a human good, and has, as a consequence of this elevated books.  We all have bookshelves filled with volumes of hard cover books, some of these we have read, but many (either given to us as a gift, or bought by us in a fit of passion and desire to change ourselves) will stand there for years collecting dust without having a broken spine; indeed, we often collect books as a sign of our intellectual prowess.  What amazes me is that in our world- where abbreviations are steadily replacing many words, we still value the spoken word as an “end in itself”, so much so that we judge developing countries on the literacy rate of their population.  The HDI (human development index), an annual report that rates countries from most, to least developed, looking at nations’ standards of living, mentions the issue of literacy as a key indicator of a States’ development.

Talking about the cost of books, this too has changed, from the days where all books were affordable, to today, where the cost of some books (almost anything printed 50 years ago or more) has shrunk virtually to $0, with e-books being freely available online, to the costs of others skyrocketing to a point where one is almost required to take out a second mortgage to afford a few textbooks (this may sound funny, but I kid you not, the cost of many accounting or business textbooks is upwards of $200, and students are required to purchase 4-5 of these books a semester!)

It is my hope that with the increased use of technology, e-books and other media, such as We Compare Books, book prices will again shrink as publishers realize the un-sustainability of such increases and figure out other ways to profit from our addiction to books (perhaps using product placement in examples, If Jimmy buys a bottle of Coke for $… and a bottle of Pepsi costs…, but here I am of course joking).

Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment by Jennifer Clapp and Peter Dauvergne is a book written, to shed light on the ongoing debate about the relationship between environmental issues and political economy.  Too many times, say authors Jennifer Clapp and Peter Dauvergne, is the big picture completely bypassed in order to delve into the details surrounding and permeating environmentalism.  By putting things into perspective using political and economic theories, one can illuminate the socioeconomic causes and consequences of environmental change.  This also helps to avoid any emotional or moral entanglements which many times accompany analyses of environmental issues.

In order to look at the socioeconomic factors behind environmental policy, Clapp and Dauvergne address four main camps involved in environmental change: market liberals, institutionalists, bioenvironmentalists and social greens.  These categories are intentionally multi-disciplinary so as to not be too focused on one portion of the issue.  By taking a wide swath of the areas which environmental issues touch, one can see the big picture instead of getting caught up in the details of one discipline.  It also lets one focus on the international and government levels, especially how globalization and the type of political economic system employed in a state affect environmental issues, challenges and outcomes.

Using these four groups, the authors take a critical look at various elements within today’s political economy, including globalization, trade, international and domestic markets, distribution of wealth, poverty, health issues, and so forth.  Each view takes a different stance on the issues.  For example, market liberals view globalization, trade agreements and free markets as good things which will eventually work to stabilize economies and give incentive to businesses and consumers to switch to sustainable practices and products.  Bioenvironmentalists, on the other hand, have a negative view of today’s free market economies, globalization and trade agreements which lead to over-consumption and over-population beyond the capacity of the planet.

I agree with many of the sentiments contained within the above reviews.  It is a very balanced book; it does not give priority to one viewpoint over another, giving each equal representation on all topics discussed.  The four viewpoints in themselves were also very helpful in making sense of the environmental debate.  The book did exactly what it promised to do: it took a “big-picture” look at the debate and issues without getting impeded by details or moral sentiment.  By taking an objective view on the different stances I was able to more fully understand the various groups involved in the debate, what they actually believe and why they believe it.  It is also very thorough, discussing the multitude of issues involved, including everything from the WTO and NAFTA to different industries (mining, oil, timber, etc.) to environmental NGOs such as Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund as they relate to the issues at hand and the four viewpoints at work.

The lessons taken from the book can be applied to the huge number of different issues, problems and cases in the environmental world, and in that it is an invaluable resource for anyone studying environmentalism, sustainable development or political economy.  It is also helpful in bringing light to different arguments concerning sustainable development and creating a dialogue which will hopefully aid in developing actual policy prescriptions to the various problems we face.

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The way that the publishing business works has changed much since the early days of the Internet. The way that it used to work was that textbooks were more affordable, and since the used book market was very private, publishers were content with their profit margin. It is important to note here that publishers profit only from the sale of a new book; when a used book is sold and resold the original publisher of the book does not see a cent of the money generated. In the case where a bookstore sells used books, the bookstore gets the profit from the sale of the used book but has to buy it from someone. In the case of college bookstores, they have a constant supply of books since every year students graduate and want to get rid of their textbooks. On the other hand, whenever you purchase a book from certain sites online, the profit from the sale goes to the person selling the book, most likely another student.

As the used textbooks market developed with the rise of the Internet, and students were finally able to take control of the used book market by being able to sell their books online, publishers realized that fewer people were buying new textbooks. The solution that publishers devised was to put out a greater number of new editions or to put out new editions more often. It is important to note that many changing or rapidly evolving subjects such as computer science or biology require a new edition to be released yearly because the field changes constantly, but many other subjects such as literature, philosophy, and even business, in other words subjects that are not in a state of great flux and do not change rapidly do not require frequent edition updates. I can recall an ancient history class I took as a sophomore where the textbook that was available at the bookstore was the latest edition, and cost $80. Since I was fairly confident that ancient Greek history had not seen any major changes in the past few years I purchased an older edition online, saving $60 in the process, and had no problem keeping up the pace with other students of the class.

What many publishers do these days is that they put out a new edition regardless of whether or not any changes were actually made to the content of the book. If no changes were made than what they do is they will move around chapters, or maybe change a few chapter titles. The other strategy that publishers have developed is to include a CD or DVD with the textbook. This is seen as increasing the value of the book; however what they fail to tell you is that most, if not all, of the information on the CD/DVD is available on the publisher’s website for free, plus I have yet to meet a teacher who puts these CDs to good use.

The advice that I would offer students is to buy used and buy old editions whenever possible, and if you want to shop online I recommend you use a book price comparison website, in order to make sure that the price you are getting is the best one. In general, you should not stray further than 2 editions prior to the current one. If you are unsure as to an older edition of a textbook, I would advise that you consult with your professor, many are starting to come to the realization that books are putting a real economic strain on students and are starting to care, so they may be able to help.