Merton’s autobiography sold millions despite being a religious rejection of the world.

Evidence

It contained, as Rice describes it, the “evocation of a young man in an age when the soul of mankind had been laid open as never before, during world depression and unrest and the rise of both Communism and Fascism, when Europe and America seemed destined to war on a brutal and unimaginable scale.” The book sold tens of thousands of copies within a few months of publication and was only kept off The New York Times bestseller list on the grounds that it was considered a religious book. It went on to sell multiple millions of copies. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 220

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

Related

• Merton abandoned his own spiritual rejection of the world. (similarity 0.82)