No writer ever really wants to talk about censorship. Writers want to talk about creation, and censorship is anti-creation, negative energy, uncreation, the bringing into being of non-being, or, to use Tom Stoppard’s description of death, “the absence of presence.” Censorship is the thing that stops you doing what you want to do, and what writers want to talk about is what they do, not what stops them doing it.

From Head Shops to Whole Foods by Joshua Clark Davis is a scholarly examination of activist entrepreneurs who use business as a tool to enact social and political change. It’s a far-reaching subject to dedicate this sort of academic rigor to, and the author limits his examination to four subjects: African American bookstores, head shops, … Continued