We Americans are success-worshipers. Our folklore, from Ben Franklin to Horatio Alger, abounds with tales of poor but honest youths, born into humble circumstances, who achieve eminence by means of probity, determination, and an occasional federal subsidy. Success, we are told, can come to a man in spite of race, color, or creed—and sometimes because of them.
Such dreams of success have produced among us a peculiar kind of literature: the how-to-succeed book. There have been a vast number of these through the years, but the classic in the field is Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, an engaging if slightly meretricious text that urges tact, flattery, and sheer groveling as a means of getting along with people and then getting the best of them.
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