Road to Serfdom, The - Hayek, F. A. & Caldwell, Bruce [11]
Knight’s distinctly ambivalent report could easily have resulted in the Press rejecting the manuscript. Instead, Acting Editor John T. McNeill took it to mean that it was worthy of further consideration. On December 14 he asked another Chicago economist, Jacob Marschak, to provide a second reader’s report. Marschak, a socialist, was far more complimentary, writing six days later that “Hayek’s book may start in this country a more scholarly kind of debate. . . . It is written with the passion and the burning clarity of a great doctrinaire. . . . This book cannot be bypassed.”56 Based on the two reports, the publication committee at the Press decided to undertake an American edition. The acceptance letter to Hayek was dated December 28, 1943.
There were still details to be settled, and Machlup acted in Hayek’s behalf concerning most of these, even to the point of accepting Chicago’s offer for Hayek in early January—it was nearly a month later when Hayek finally got the news.57 One major decision was to completely reset the type, this because in the British edition Hayek frequently referred to England as “this country.”58 Two other changes were suggested by the Press, but both were rejected. The first was to change the name to Socialism: The Road to Serfdom. Both Machlup and Hayek thought that the proposed title was misleading, because socialism was only one of a subset of doctrines the book criticized. Central planning could be undertaken by parties on the right as well as the left; this was Hayek’s point when he dedicated the book to socialists of all parties. The other proposal was to eliminate the aphorisms with which Hayek began each chapter. Hayek was sufficiently appalled by the latter suggestion that he followed up his letter of protest with a cable reading “Cannot consent to omission of quotations from Road to Serfdom.”59 The quotations were retained, including one from David Hume on the title page. Inexplicably, a quotation from Tocqueville that appeared on the title page of the British edition was dropped from the original American one, and in some of the later reprints the Hume quotation was moved off of the title page to the following one. Both have been restored to their rightful place on the title page in the current edition.60
Publication: From Minor Hit to Cultural Icon
The Road to Serfdom appeared on March 10, 1944, in England. The initial print run was 2,000 copies, and due to the strong demand (it sold out in about a month’s time) a second printing of 2,500 was immediately ordered. That one quickly sold out as well, but nothing further could be done until a new paper quota was announced in July. Paper shortages would plague British production of the book for the duration and beyond.61 July also saw the publication of an Australian edition.62
The American edition, with a run of 2,000 copies, came out on September 18, 1944, a Monday, though advance copies had been sent to reviewers earlier. Henry Hazlitt’s laudatory front page review appeared in the next Sunday’s New York Times Book Review section, and another graced the pages of the Herald Tribune. By September 28 a second and third printing had been ordered, bringing the total to 17,000 copies.63 The Press had a minor hit on its hands.
At the end of October a letter arrived at the Press that would help turn it into a major hit and a cultural icon. On the recommendation of Henry Gideonse, the Press had sent a copy of the book to Max Eastman, then a “roving editor” for The Reader’s Digest. Eastman liked it so much that he asked the owner and editor-in-chief, DeWitt Wallace, for permission to do a condensation.64 This appeared in April 1945, and it carried with it an offer of reprints, available through the Book-of-the-Month Club, for a nickel apiece. (Bulk orders were also possible: if one wanted 1,000 copies, it cost