Monopoly Bookstore Chains/Positivism/Social Engineering

[Rakesh Bhandari]

To connect threads on bookstores and positivism/social engineering, I saw
in Barnes and Nobles for $45 from Harvard Alain Desrosieres' Politics of
Large Numbers (AD is a student of Pierre Bourdieu's). I learned of his
critique of statistical methodology from Peter Wagner's provocative and
sophisticated  A Sociology of Modernity: Liberty and Discipline and then
looked up the article by AD cited and anthologized by Wagner (Peter
Wagner, ed. Discourses on Society: The Shaping of the Social Science
Disciplines) . I don't have the article with me. 

 I am pretty sure that this book (trans from the French) will be one of
the most important critiques of social science methodology I will have
read. Can't wait till it gets in the library. I expect this to be an
intellectual event in the social sciences. 

best, rakesh