Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone sold 120M copies, The Little Prince sold 100M. 7M over 64 years is tiny! A big difference is that these books had global audiences, but Ayn Rand is US-only. Hardly anyone in Europe or Japan has even heard of her.
https://twitter.com/mkibbe/status/1447200246488961028
To everyone saying "actually...": I can't speak for the UK or India, but in non-English speaking countries she is unknown. Atlas Shrugged didn't have a French edition until 2011, a German edition until 2012, Japanese until 2004. It sold *thousands* of copies in these countries.
Meanwhile in the US she's completely mainstream. Everyone knows her name and the title of that book. Very commonly read in high school for class. So yes, there's a big difference. The extent she's known elsewhere is a pure side effect of her influence in the US.
Anyway, that's a lot of unnecessary words to say, no I don't think Atlas Shrugged is the most influential book in history after the Bible.
Guess there's a lesson here about the relativism of culture: what's essential and obvious to one person may mean nothing to their neighbor.
Guess there's a lesson here about the relativism of culture: what's essential and obvious to one person may mean nothing to their neighbor.
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