I saw a headline from the New York Times the other day that reported an interesting new trend: independent bookstores are beginning to make a financial comeback.

My immediate thought was of Powell’s in downtown Portland. What contributed to the financial success of such an unorthodox business in today’s modern and technology-saturated world? Powell’s is the largest independent book store in the world – is their success based solely on a good financial model? Is it because that area in Portland is fairly educated, liberal and diverse? Or is it something else?

I think that people have an innate draw to nostalgia, to things that remind people of the past. When the Kindle came out there was a torrent of people who predicted the inevitable demise of print books, but here we are, years later, and these little bookstores are making a comeback.

This sort of popular ideological rebellion against progressivism has been characteristic of recent years. Nostalgia is an emotion that people are attracted to, and this is starting to manifest itself in the way people spend their money on a macroeconomic level.