I really became struck by the overwhelming importance of the issue from my experiences of everyday life. In the early 1990s, big bookstores like the Barnes and Nobles complete with coffee bars began to proliferate. The first time I went into a new one that opened in my neighborhood I asked a clerk where the History section was. He went to find another clerk while I stood waiting in front of rows and rows of books. I said to the two of them, I don t mean to be difficult, but Barnes and Nobles has to have a history section.
All bookstores do.
So we traipsed over to information desk paged over a loud speaker and the manager of the floor came over. To make a long story shorter, the two clerks, the manager, and I walked up and down the aisles, and finally came to two single bookshelves marked History. To get there, we passed several hundred book shelves of Recovery books. When you added Self-Help to Recovery, it encompassed the majority of the store. It was an experience that left an indelible impression.