Why the book “How to win friends and influence other people” is so famous among the human race?

This book was published more than fifty years ago. To be exact it was 83 years ago, let say almost a century but it’s still an amazing book and people are still amazed by the contents in this pretty old book.

In the introducing part of the book, the author expose why he decided to write this book at a period where writing book was a total mess in the United States of America. He reminded us about the struggle of the publishing industry in this period where an old publisher told him even though he was in this industry for a pretty long time he was losing a lot of money. Even after being in the industry for more than seventy-five years this publishing director claimed that 7 out of 8 books published were not financially good.

Two of his basic questioning to write this book where:

1)     How the hell I’ve found this desire to write a book in this condition?

2)     How the hell can I expect you to read this book?

Well, his way of answering those questions is pretty convincing. I think he might persuade a lot of people since the first year of publication of this book. Eighty-three years later those reasons are still persuading people to read this book. Those reasons have persuaded some others to persuade other people to take the time to read this book. It’s pretty rare those days to someone who really wants you to succeed that won’t even take some seconds to ask you this question: “Have you read Carnegie’s book: How to win friends and influence people?”. If not think again about this friend or his (her) intentions for you.

Therefore, to understand the reasons for where this book’s fame was coming, let’s just make a summary of Dale's arguments to write this astonishing book.

His preface was titled: “How and why writing this book.”

He then started by answering this question by wrapping up what he is an expert in. Indeed, he is an expert who taught the public speaking through his classes in New York since 1912. Those classes were delivered to traders, entrepreneurs, industrials, and professionals from many fields who need to manage their eloquence and their public speaking skills.

On top of those skills, there was something missing. This missing piece which is “Practical Psychology” was very valuable in human relationships.

Most of the times when we need to learn something new we turn to a book. However, there was any book about “practical psychology” which would allow individuals to learn about how to influence others and interact better with our peers. Researches have shown us that technical knowledge was valuable at 15% of success even in the scientific profession. However, 85% of those successes are possible due to the personality, sympathy and the ability to generate others’ enthusiasm. This research was conducted by the Carnegie Foundation way before the idea of producing the book. Carnegie himself wanted a similar book when he was younger. Unfortunately, there wasn’t. Even in American colleges, there wasn’t any class teaching about the precious faculty of dealing with humans. John D. Rockefeller once said: “those who know how to deal with others owned a quality that he was ready to pay any value for”. Consequently, Dale Carnegie had to write one to gather enough information allowing his students to know more about “practical psychology”. That might answer the why of this book.

For now, let’s get to how he then wrote this book.

Dale used partly his real-life experiences and a larger part is based on a different reading of documents close to this subject. He gathered information from

He interviewed famous people namely Marconi, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Owen D. Young; Famous artists were also interviewed such as Clark Gable, Mary Pickford, and so one.

Those were gathered in a document used for a conference at the beginning. Years after years it gets bigger and bigger and was thaught at the Carnegie Institute for years. He then used some experiences of those who participated in those lectures. He gathered fifteen years of information, personal experiences and experiences made by the students to whom his lecture was presented.

Well, why this book was and is still so famous among the others?

Some case studies used by the authors can illustrate the magical power of the lecture on Carnegie’s students, and the power of this book on his reader. Among the multiple success stories he took examples of a boss of 314 employees, then the example of a manager of a gas company in Philadelphia, then the letter of a German who was issued from a officers’ line in the Hohenzollern, and finally a former Harvard student living in New York who is member of the New York Yale Club.

In a nutshell, reading this book will actually help you to grow your sympathetic muscles. Dale wrote it to help those of us who need to improve their relationship with others. He taught techniques on professional relations, friendship, love and so one. Almost everyone has found something necessary for their life.

In the following posts, I’ll summarize from my point of view (from my understanding) some of the chapters of this book.

P.S.: I’ve read the entire book in French. I’ve maybe used my English words’ choice to translate from my understanding of the French version. Usually, the French version doesn’t really reflect the complete ideas expressed by the original version which was in this case in English. Consequently, English to French to English might introduce some change in the initial word use.

My credit goes straight to Denise Geneix, she’s the one who adapted and translated the original version in French.

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