--- begin forwarded text Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 13:18:41 -0500 Reply-To: Hayek Related Research <HAYEK-L@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: Hayek Related Research <HAYEK-L@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Greg Ransom <Gregransom@AOL.COM> Subject: HAYEKWEB: J Powel on _The Road to Serfdom_ To: HAYEK-L@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Hayek on the Web <<
"The Road to Serfdom Inside story of a 50-year phenomenon" (by Jim Powell, July 1994), on the Web at: http://www.lfb.org/fa7139.html
From "The Road to Serfdom Inside story of a 50-year phenomenon" by Jim Powell:
"This year, much has been written about F.A. Hayek's enormously influential classic, _The Road to Serfdom_. But until now, no one has reported the inside story of how a few devoted friends of freedom helped get the book published in America, despite overwhelming hostility from publishers and the media. "Friedrich A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom," political science professor Herman Finer fumed in 1946, reflecting collectivist orthodoxy of the time, "constitutes the most inopportune offensive against democracy to emerge from a democratic country for many decades." No doubt about it, _The Road to Serfdom_ was explosively controversial from the beginning, especially his case that all forms of collectivism lead to tyranny. The book was first published a half-century ago in Britain by Routledge, March 1944. Nobel Prize winning economist Ronald Coase recalls that during Britain's July 1945 parliamentary election campaign Winston Churchill cited Hayek in his dramatic campaign speeches, to help show that a Labor Party win would mean tyranny. Labor Party leader Clement Atlee ridiculed Hayek and defeated Churchill. Soon afterwards, Atlee began seizing coal, steel, railroads and other businesses .... Opposition to Hayek's ideas was fierce in the United States, and a number of publishers rejected the book. But there were friends of freedom who worked wonders. Hayek authorized fellow Austrian economist Fritz Machlup, then working in Washington, to try to find an American publisher, but he was unsuccessful. He gave a copy of the Routledge page proofs to University of Chicago economics professor Aaron Director who met Hayek in 1943 when both were teaching at the London School of Economics. Director passed the page proofs to Frank Knight, founding father of the "Chicago School." Knight apparently gave them to William T. Couch, a classical liberal friend at the University of Chicago Press which agreed to publish the book on September 18, 1944. But since nobody expected it would sell many copies, the initial printing was only 2,000. It was a little wartime edition about 4-7/8ths by 6-3/4 inches. To help the book gain a hearing, the publishers asked John Chamberlain, respected book editor for Harper's magazine and a devout libertarian, to write a foreword. His name appeared prominently on the cover. The initial reception was cool. On September 20, 1944, New York Times daily book reviewer Orville Prescott called it a "sad and angry little book." But then New York Times economics editorial writer Henry Hazlitt weighed in with a home run: a 1,500 word blockbuster review on the front page of the Sunday New York Times Book Review, September 24, 1944. Hazlitt declared that "Friedrich Hayek has written one of the most important books of our generation." The University of Chicago Press ordered another printing. The book sold 22,000 copies by year-end and sold this much again by spring 1945. Meanwhile, Reader's Digest editors DeWitt and Lila Acheson Wallace expressed interest in publishing an excerpt from the book, and the University of Chicago Press, eager to reach a popular audience, seems to have given away those rights for nothingHayek later remarked he never got a penny. In any case, The Road to Serfdom filled the first 20 pages of the April 1945 Reader's Digest under a banner headline drawn from Hazlitt's review: "One of the Most Important Books of Our Generation." This brought Hayek's story to about 8 million people in the U.S. alone. Subsequently, Book-of-the-Month Club distributed some 600,000 copies of a condensed edition. Sales records are incomplete, but there were a good many more printings after that, and the book eventually sold at least 230,000 copies in the U.S. Hayek went on a U.S. lecture tour, including prestigious places like Harvard University, and he decided he rather liked being a lightning rod for freedom. He expressed his views in popular publications like the Chicago Sun, Boston Traveler and New York Times Magazine. He met many friends of freedom with whom he was to collaborate in later years. Three dozen friends joined him to found the international Mont Pelerin Society. ... Today people around the world appreciate Hayek's profound truths which seemed so shocking half-century ago. We at Laissez Faire are proud to help distribute it in several dozen countries ... Contents: Introduction 1. The Abandoned Road 2. The Great Utopia 3. Individualism and Collectivism 4. The "Inevitability" of Planning 5. Planning and Democracy 6. Planning and the Rule of Law 7. Economic Control and Totalitarianism 8. Who, Whom? 9. Security and Freedom 10. Why the Worst Get on Top 11. The End of Truth 12. The Socialist Roots of Naziism 13. The Totalitarians in Our Midst 14. Material Conditions and Ideal Ends 15. The Prospects of International Order 16. Conclusion FA7139W The Road to Serfdom (paperback) 248p. $10.95" Hayek on the Web is a regular feature of the Hayek-L list.
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--- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>