10 June 2019
In 1991, one year after James Daunt opened his first eponymous bookstore in London, Waterstones unveiled its first U.S. bookstore in Boston. The U.K. chain grew its stateside presence to a modest size, maintaining a foothold in the country until the turn of the millennium. Like today, the 1990s saw many retailers forced to close, but for a different reason: they were ceding ground to chains, big box stores, and superstores. Among the chains expanding rapidly at the time was the bookseller Barnes & Noble, which had acquired several other bookstore chains and was subsequently blamed, together with the rise of Amazon, for the demise of thousands of independent bookstores.
