Myth is starting to become the subject of pretty frequent blogospheric discussion. Some of this is just because I made sure bloggers got copies. That explains this nice post by my former neighbor Phil Coggan, the capital markets editor at the Economist. And this one by Matthew Yglesias. My editor gave a copy to Baseline Scenario's James Kwak, which resulted in this. My PR czarina got a book to The Deal's Robert Teitelman, which led to this.
But a lot of blog mentions now are just coming out of the woodwork. Some are from people who bought the book and have been reading it, others simply seem motivated by the title. I have unwittingly (or half-wittingly) followed the advice of David Brooks, from Bobos in Paradise, on how to make a splash in American intellectual life:
To get the most attention, the essay should be wrong. ... Yale professor Paul Kennedy had a distinguished but unglamorous career under his belt when he wrote The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, predicting American decline. He was wrong, and hundreds of other commentators rose to say so, thus making him famous and turning his book into a bestseller. Francis Fukuyuma wrote an essay called "The End of History," which seemed wrong to people who only read the title. Thousands of essayists wrotes pieces pointing out that history had not ended, and Fukuyama became a global sensation.
I like to think my book falls in the Fukuyama category (the title is perhaps exaggerated, but the text holds up pretty well), not the Kennedy one. Although I'm not sure Kennedy was wrong. Early, perhaps. But not necessarily wrong.
Brooks also recommends book titles that begin with The End of, or The Death of. I guess The Myth of is close enough.
