BY MAGGIE PUCCI
Pathfinder, located in New York with distributors in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, publishes books and pamphlets by revolutionary and working-class leaders. Pathfinder bookstores are listed in the directory on page 12.
Efforts by promoters of Pathfinder to expand the sales of revolutionary books and pamphlets are off to a good start. Results have begun to come in, and Pathfinder sales in January show a modest increase over past months.
A big part of this upturn is sales of the new Pathfinder book Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War, 1956-1958 by Ernesto Che Guevara.
Pathfinder bookstores around the world have ordered nearly 500 more copies of this book in the two weeks since the initial shipments of close to 850 went out.
Bob Miller, who is a member of the United Auto Workers union at the Ford assembly plant in Edison, New Jersey reports he sold $200 worth of Pathfinder literature on the job in one week.
"This week I tried something new. I retrieved a shoulder bag from the bottom of my closet and neatly packed it with about 15 titles. I would set them down by co-workers' workplaces, or display a few in the cafeteria."
"Two co-workers joined the Pathfinder Readers Club and took advantage of the 25 percent off sale on Episodes." In all, four of Miller's co-workers joined the readers club in one week.
For an annual fee of $10, members of the readers club receive a 15 percent discount on all Pathfinder publications. Members also enjoy even higher discounts on selected titles.
"Early in the week one co-worker said he would buy February 1965: The Final Speeches by Malcolm X and Malcolm X on Afro- American History. By the end of the week Pathfinder announced a 25 percent off sale on these titles, among others, for Black History Month. This settled the question, and he joined the readers club too," Miller continued.
"This is a real eye-opener, revealing the extent of interest among auto workers in these political weapons," Miller writes. Twelve co-workers bought books from Miller, nine for the first time. Titles purchased also included Teamster Rebellion by Farrell Dobbs and The Eastern Airlines Strike by Ernie Mailhot.
Pathfinder supporters in Boston have netted results in their efforts to increase sales of Pathfinder books through retail outlets, faxing in four orders totaling nearly 150 books from bookstores in their region.
An order for 95 books came in from a large store near several Boston campuses. Among the books ordered were several copies of Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War and The Bolivian Diary of Ernesto Che Guevara, ten copies of the newly reissued Communist Manifesto, and Ireland and the Irish Question by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.
A note from Mary Nell Bockman accompanied an order from a college bookstore in Worcester, Massachusetts. "They will do a display for Black History Month featuring these books. Can we rush the order so they can get it by Friday? They also want copies of whatever posters we are promoting with the books. We have three more visits lined up next week as well."
A college bookstore in Boston ordered New International no. 10 which features the articles "Imperialism's March Toward Fascism and War" and "Defending Cuba, Defending Cuba's Socialist Revolution," The Truth About Yugoslavia, and the Spanish-language titles Habla Malcolm X and !Qué lejos hemos llegado los esclavos! (How Far We Slaves Have Come) by Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro.
Pathfinder received a copy of a review of Woman's Evolution by Evelyn Reed that appeared in The WomanSource Catalog & Review, an "eclectic review of books, periodicals, organizations, products, and other resources for women."
"The family as it exists in modern society is, for the most part, a patriarchal institution with men as the head of households and holding the lines of descent. But has it always been that way?" the reviewer asks.
"Not according to this anthropological history of family which traces society back to its earliest and longest period of `savagery,' a period lasting a million years during which matriarchal clans originated as the first social structures of family."
The reviewer dubs Woman's Evolution "a painstakingly researched and fascinating history."