Road to Serfdom, The - Hayek, F. A. & Caldwell, Bruce [24]
54 As Press editor John Scoon recounted in a letter dated May 2, 1945, to C. Hartley Grattan, “The idea of the Press’s publishing it in this country was suggested by a member of the Department of Economics at the University who had previously known Hayek and his work; almost simultaneously another friend of the author’s, once at the University but then in Washington with the government, suggested the book to us and got us the page proofs.” Scoon’s letter may be found in the University of Chicago Press collection, box 230, folder 3, University of Chicago Library. Scoon and Press director Joseph Brandt both joined the Press in January 1944, so Scoon’s account of the process by which the book came to Chicago is second hand. Nonetheless, his letter is filled with interesting information (Milton Friedman also made use of parts of it in his “Note on Publishing History”), and it is published for the first time in the appendix.
55 Frank Knight, reader’s report, December 10, 1943, University of Chicago Press collection, box 230, folder 1, University of Chicago Library. The report is published for the first time in the appendix.
56 Jacob Marschak, reader’s report, December 20, 1943, University of Chicago Press collection, box 230, folder 1, University of Chicago Library. The report is published for the first time in the appendix.
57 See Hayek’s letter to Machlup, February 2, 1944, Machlup Papers, box 43, folder 15, Hoover Institution Archives.
58 As noted in the editorial foreword, the text of the American edition serves as the basis for the present edition.
59 In a letter dated June 26, 1944, Hayek explained to editor Scoon why the quotations were so important: “The whole tone of the chapter is sometimes determined by the fact that the main idea is summarized in the quotation at the head, and I sometimes deliberately omit to state a main conclusion because it is expressed in the quotation. I should it regard as a major calamity to the book if they have really to be omitted. . . .” The letter may be found in the University of Chicago Press collection, box 230, folder 1, University of Chicago Library.
60 An editorial anecdote: the book is filled with quotations of others, and unfortunately, Hayek often failed to get the quotations exactly right, even those at the head of his chapters. In a letter dated February 26, 1944, Hayek asked Machlup to correct one of his quotes, Acton’s famous line, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Unfortunately, even in his correction Hayek got it wrong, telling Machlup it should read, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely”! Machlup dutifully passed the “correction” on, but presumably the actual quote was sufficiently famous that the Chicago Press copyeditor caught the error, for the correct phrasing appeared in the book. The letter is found in the Machlup Papers, box 43, folder 15, Hoover Institution Archives.
61 As Jeremy Shearmur, “Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, and the British Conservative Party,” Journal of the History of Economic Thought, forthcoming, reports, an abridged British edition was published by Routledge using paper that had been transferred from the allocation provided to the British Conservative Party. The abridgement was done by a conservative MP, Commander Archibald James, and in the place of the title page quotations from Hume and Tocqueville, the abridged edition carried a quotation from Winston Churchill, the leader of the Conservative Party!
62 F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Sydney: Dymock’s Book Arcade, Ltd., 1944).
63 For more details on the early history of its publication in America, see John Scoon’s letter of May 2, 1945 to C. Hartley Grattan, which is reprinted in the appendix.
64 Hayek mentioned Eastman, who was initially sympathetic to the Russian Revolution but subsequently recanted, in chapter 2, p. 79. Cf. the foreword to the 1956 American paperback edition, this volume, p. 41.