A single popular book could crystallize a scattered intellectual network into a movement

Evidence

In this atmosphere the publication of a book that could capture some portion of the pop u lar imagination was a potentially transformative event. Upon the publication of The Good Society, Röpke wrote directly to Lippmann to herald its appearance as a moment of transition. “I state with unmitigated enthusiasm that you have given masterful expression to ideas which are in the minds of that all too small circle of thinking Liberals and that you have added new and weighty ideas.” Lippmann, in publishing The Good Society, heralded the possible emergence of a new moment for those who had committed themselves to a revitalized liberalism: a time when what seemed to have been a desperate errand into the wilderness began to yield precursory results. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 166

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: why did The Good Society specifically become the crystallization point rather than Röpke or Hayek’s own works?
• XREF: Connects to my notes on how texts function as coordination devices in intellectual movements, parallel to the role of manifestos in other traditions. — connects to: Neoliberal backers believed a canonical text was a precondition for movement success — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1447; A bestseller’s political analysis can interest a minority while its lifestyle vision sells — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited: The Sixties and the…, 871; Independent publishing can revive a public intellectual discourse — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 292

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal backers believed a canonical text was a precondition for movement success #corroborates (0.82) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1447