Publishers Gave Away 123 Million Books During World War Two 121
An anonymous reader writes Information wants to be free? During the Second World War, it actually was. Publishers took advantage of new printing technologies to sell crates of cheap, paperback books to the military for just six cents a copy, at a time when almost all the other books they printed cost more than two dollars. The army and the navy shipped them to soldiers and sailors around the world, giving away nearly 123 million books for free. Many publishers feared the program would destroy their industry, by flooding the market with free books and destroying the willingness of consumers to pay for content. Instead, it fueled a postwar publishing boom, as millions of GIs got hooked on good books, and proved willing to pay for more. It's a freemium model, more than 70 years ago.
Free? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think servicemen in WWII were paying a large enough price
Re:Free? (Score:4, Interesting)
The way we glorify military service over all types of contribution / sacrifice for the national interest is pretty amazing these days. It's like the movies have brainwashed us into believing that soldiers are the only national heroes around.
Re: (Score:2)
The verbal fellation of our military was even higher a few years ago; hero this and hero that, even military hardware got the hero treatment: one of the retired Essex-class aircraft carriers was referred to as a "hero ship" at least once.
I like to think we're getting over the overreaction against how returning Vietnam vets were treated, but it'll probably take several more years.
Re: (Score:2)
trust me I am the first one to call out all the heart string teary eyed hero bullshit, there's quite a bit of difference tween WWII and the penis contests that proceeded it
Re: (Score:1)
you are forgetting "first responders", cops, medics in ambulances, firefighters. The unholy trinity.
Re: (Score:2)
That would probably have been Lexington (not CV-3, the Essex with the same name), which was built in 14 months. An impressive feat at the best of times, and that wasn't the best of times....
Re: (Score:2)
If we're going to be pedantic, Lex was CV-2; CV-3 was Saratoga. :P
Not all contributions / sacrifice are equivalent (Score:5, Informative)
Does patriotism today only count if you're in the military? The way we glorify military service over all types of contribution / sacrifice for the national interest is pretty amazing these days. It's like the movies have brainwashed us into believing that soldiers are the only national heroes around.
Not all contributions / sacrifice are equivalent. There *is* something different about putting one's own life on the line. And the reason military service is considered in such high regard today is that for many years of very recent history putting on the uniform included a high probability of a combat deployment.
That said, even in a time of peace there is some risk. Military personnel die in training. Plus there is the ever present chance that a war will occur. One of my high school teachers joined the Marines during peacetime and a couple of years later found himself fighting on Guadalcanal, short on ammo, short on food, short on support from the Navy, and ordered to hold his position at all costs.
Many people find themselves in terrible dangerous situations and rise to the occasion, but soldiers, police, fireman, etc volunteer for such risks knowingly. Volunteering to go into harms way is a little different from accidentally finding ones self in harms way. Are these people exclusively in uniform, no, for example there were civilians that safely made it out of the world trade center but went back in to help others. That is another example of volunteering to go into harms way.
Re: (Score:2)
I find it amusing / annoying / ignorant when random people go up to someone in uniform and "thank you for your sacrifice". That's part of the brainwashing of the public to believe that military = heroes. For every 1 hero there are 100 normal unremarkable people. Just like in regular life. Why do we treat all the milita
Re:Not all contributions / sacrifice are equivalen (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, sure. But most of the people in the military are hardly putting their lives on the line. They're working in warehouses, changing tires, sitting at a desk doing analysis. I find it amusing / annoying / ignorant when random people go up to someone in uniform and "thank you for your sacrifice". That's part of the brainwashing of the public to believe that military = heroes. For every 1 hero there are 100 normal unremarkable people. Just like in regular life. Why do we treat all the military like they're the 1% ?
Basically because the 99% can very suddenly find themselves a part of the 1%.
Don't be so quick to judge someone by their occupational specialty. Let me explain it to you the way a WW2 paratrooper explained it to me when I was a kid: "Don't trust the TV commercials that the military is a good place to learn a trade, like electronics, its not that simple. Every person entering the military spends some time crawling around in the mud with a rifle learning to fight. Its not some hazing ritual. When the shit hits the fan and things get desperate the cooks, clerks and mechanics are told to pick up a weapon and fight. Regardless of what job you are expecting to have in the military, don't sign up unless you are willing to pick up that weapon and fight."
This former paratrooper then told me about the truck driver he shared a frozen hole in the ground with while on the front line defending Bastogne. The truck driver was part of group that made a dangerous last minute supply run into the city before it was completely surrounded, after delivering the supplies they were told to pick up rifles and reinforce some paratroopers that were spread out very thinly. The paratrooper's brother was a clerk in the Navy. He was assigned to a destroyer in the Pacific. When the ship went to general quarter, getting ready to fight, he put away the typewriter and ledger books and manned a 40mm bofors cannon. That high school teacher I mentioned earlier, the Marine on Guadalcanal, he was wounded but instead of being medically discharged he was assigned to various army company headquarters units in Europe as a translator. While preparing his discharge paperwork someone noticed that he spoke fluent German, his fate changed. Another high school teacher was a Marine in Vietnam. He was an electronics tech with a desk job on base. Then one day he was told he would be accompanying a force recon team into enemy territory to set up sensors on a jungle road to detect enemy supply convoys. These jungle roads were under a heavy tree canopy so aerial observation was not possible.
Don't be so quick to judge clerks, truck drivers, electronics techs, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
The one thing they ALL remarked on was the mud. They estimate they must have had to truck in all the mud.
They were good guys - alas many have now died off.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The point is still valid. You're arguing that because one puts himself in the position (by joining the military) where he can be easily forced to fight, that makes him a hero. That right there pretty much belittles those people who actually have participated in combat. No, I'm sorry...joining the military doesn't automatically give you a cape.
You misunderstand and you distort what I said. Lets try it one last time.
(1) People who volunteer for the military are not forced to fight. They **agree**, up front, to go into harms way as needed. Going into harms way may or may not involve fighting. They further **agree**, up front, that participating in the fighting is a possibility. Furthermore, ordinary military training involves a certain amount of risk to life and limb, even in peace time.
(2) Non-military also **agree** to go into harms way up
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I registered for the Selective Service when I turned 18. I agreed--up front--to go into harms way as needed. I also pledged allegiance to the country every day for years as a child in America's public schools. I think I meet your dubious criteria for canonization.
So did I. The point you missed was that our selective service registration was **not** voluntary. We were required by law to do so. Actually enlisting was completely voluntary. All those who serve, drafted or volunteer, deserve respect. But those who volunteer deserve some extra respect. Which is entirely the case for those who have gone into harms way since Vietnam.
Also respect and canonization are very different things. You make yourself look foolish by conflating the two. Although those who volunteer
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As for joining the military to learn some trade or earn money for college, that absolutely happens. However even in peacetime these people are making a voluntary choice to risk life and limb and to forfeit personal liberties for an extended period of time. I know a Navy Corpsman who is saving up money for coll
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You have no point. In WW2 civilians {clerks, students, etc) were drafted and told to pick up rifles as well. The fact is that 99% of the military sits on their butt behind a desk today.
The point that you missed is that going into harms way deserves respect, but **volunteering** for it deserves some extra respect. Today's military is all volunteer, hence the extra respect. Plus ordinary military training involves a certain risk to life and limb, even in peace time.
Another point that you miss is that desk jobs do not mean you had not gone into harms way in the past (the translator I mentioned), or will not go into harms way in the future (the clerk and electronics tech I mentioned, and a
Re:Not all contributions / sacrifice are equivalen (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, sure. But most of the people in the military are hardly putting their lives on the line. They're working in warehouses, changing tires, sitting at a desk doing analysis.
I hate to break the news to you, but you are very ignorant.
Take your example of comparing a soldier to a guy working at Bell Tire or some Amazon shipping. Sure, not all soldiers are deployed to a combat theater, but all soldiers must be trained and capable of being deployed. This means training. Lots and lots of training, which is often quite dangerous. Have you ever seen a person fall 70 feet repelling as part of their duty at jiffy lube? How about a guy at Bell Tire get his face shredded by a weapon malfunction at a range training for combat? The guy at Amazon risks a tank not seeing him and killing him while he's working at Amazon? None of those things real or realistic
That's not to imply you should give military people sympathy, we still have an all voluntary military in the US. People going in know the risks, just like a police officer in a big city knows their risks. You should however respect that these men and women regularly risk life and limb so that they are ready to protect you from enemies at all times, even if they are not out directly engaging foreign armies/militants every day.
For every 1 hero there are 100 normal unremarkable people.
Yet another completely ignorant statement. Every military person gives up rights as a citizen for the duration of their military career. This is not optional, and there is no choice that is not criminal. If you defy the orders and regulation, you spend hard time in a penitentiary and are dishonorably discharged from the military. Go ahead and try to get a job with that on your application.
As a veteran, I speak from experience and first hand knowledge. I was not deployed to an active combat zone, but was on the ready line numerous times and saw people die from all of the examples I gave above. You don't recognize the sacrifice because you have never made the same sacrifice, and never bothered to consider what a person gives up to serve in the Military.
Re: (Score:1)
Regular civilians die at their jobs too. Construction workers, health care workers. You guys are so full of yourselves.
Re: (Score:3)
People vastly misunderestimate the riskiness of various occupations in the US.
http://www.vox.com/2014/8/22/6... [vox.com]
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Not all contributions / sacrifice are equivalen (Score:5, Insightful)
And when the Construction worker joins their trade they give up all of their Constitutional rights? His foreman can come to his house without warning and inspect his house and go through all of his belongings when ever the foreman feels like it? The construction worker can be forced to work for several days at a time without any breaks to sleep? The same construction worker can go to jail for telling his boss he's not happy with working for several days at a time without a break? The construction worker quitting his job is a felony and he will go to jail if he walks out?
Substitute any other profession for construction worker above, with the obvious exception of a US Armed forces job, and the answers all remain the same. These are the facts every military person deals with every day while they serve. Your ad hominem is useless against facts.
Acceptable casualty rate is zero for construction (Score:2)
Regular civilians die at their jobs too. Construction workers, health care workers. You guys are so full of yourselves.
The construction worker gets to go home every night to the wife and kids.
The construction worker decides every morning if he will go to work today.
The construction worker can leave the job site at any time if he thinks things are getting dangerous, or loses trust in his management.
The acceptable casualty rate on construction sites is zero.
Those in the military face very different circumstances.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Most people joining the military do so to "defend the US", just like all the TV commercials claim their job will be. Just like most police officers join the force to defend the public. You also failed to read or chose to ignore the 2nd point in my post, which is that all US Military people give up their rights as a citizen as soon as they enlist. This is a very unique sacrifice, and yes it's a huge sacrifice.
Blaming a soldier that can not control their assignments instead of the politicians who give them
Re: (Score:2)
Most people joining the military do so to "defend the US", just like all the TV commercials claim their job will be. Just like most police officers join the force to defend the public.
Bullshit. Most people join the military and/or become cops to earn money.
Regardless, intentions don't make you a hero, actions do. If a politician sends you into another country to support a coup to oust some leader who's hostile to American business interests...you're not a hero...you're a mercenary.
You make the other side's point ... (Score:2)
... intentions don't make you a hero, actions do ...
You have just made the point of those you are arguing against. The **act** of volunteering to risk life and limb for others over an extended period of time is worthy of respect. The **act** of accepting many personal sacrifices over this period of time is worthy of respect.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And truthfully, neither is the soldier. The military hasn't been acting for benefit the general public in a long time, if ever.
Ignoring for a second that you are saying soldiers are better because they can't turn back when they realize that they are
Re: (Score:2)
And truthfully, neither is the soldier. The military hasn't been acting for benefit the general public in a long time, if ever.
Here is a second bit of wisdom that the WW2 paratrooper taught me as a child: "Don't confuse the people who fight wars with the people who start wars. They are not the same people. Soldiers don't get to choose what wars they will fight, what Presidents they will trust."
Ignoring for a second that you are saying soldiers are better because they can't turn back when they realize that they are actually committing horrific crimes, ...
One of the few privileges that a U.S. soldier has is to refuse to commit a horrific crime. Save the hyperbole for political rants.
... I'm not sure that a mercenary quitting would be a great idea for their well being, since whoever hired you would have access to other mercenaries.
Other mercenaries who probably also lack confidence in the mission and/or the leadership and after re-calculati
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, nothing like arguing intangibles. A mercenary is not a soldier. By definition, a mercenary is a hired thug who can choose which jobs to take and which to decline. Mercenaries don't have to live by social normals and have no public oversight or public pay.
Will you next try and bring up jobs from science fiction novels to argue with?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Bullshit, followed by more Bullshit. Your point is absolutely false and I have demonstrated that it is false numerous times. Try reading the thread again. You introduced the mercenary argument on your own because you are trying (incorrectly) to claim that the job is identical to a soldiers. There is no such equivalency in regards to a soldier losing their natural human rights and rights every other citizen is provided.
Your last sentence is an attempt to muddy the waters, nothing more.
You can not debate
Re: (Score:2)
I won't disagree, but that makes them parties that make sacrifices, not heroes.
No, they have the right to refu
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, I introduced mercenaries specifically because they meet the same criteria of the sacrifice of putting their lives at risk for extended periods of time.
Which is a fallacy argument. The only way that argument could be valid is if Mercenary and Soldiers had everything in common, which they don't.
Followed immediately by yet another attempt at muddying waters.
I would suggest that you learn some basic rhetoric skills prior to debating me in the future. I refuse to make additional comments since you can neither hold a rational thought nor express an opinion rationally (take the hint, your position is indefensible, irrational, and illogical).
Re: (Score:2)
They do, in regards to the specific point I am refuting here, which I have proven false.
You claim that "The **act** of volunteering to risk life and limb for others over an extended period of time is worthy of respect" I point out that mercenaries on extended missions risk life and limb for others over an extended period of time. I also hold that mercenaries are
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Stating that the US doesn't face any viable military threat is something of a tautology, isn't it? The US doesn't face any viable military threat because it has an unrivaled military force that makes it far too dangerous to take head-on. So, no, with our current military strength, there's pretty much a zero percent chance of an enemy invasion on our home turf, which is a fine percentage for such an unpleasant prospect. How about our smaller and much weaker allies? Is it in our own national interest to h
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You are forgetting that in order to justify invading a country, there has to be something worth invading for, and the perceived value of the invasion has to exceed the perceived cost. Factored into that are the effects of politics on the market, which generally doesn't respond positively towards war. So, while the solution is to not drop the military at once, we can make efforts to greatly reduce our military while calling out other powerful nations that don't in kind as imperialistic assholes stuck in a 19th century mindset or earlier in some cases (with providing the people in the countries you listed with the technology to communicate securely being a vital part of such a campaign). All we need to secure our safety is enough of a military to make us not worth invading, and with less and less of the world's GDP being resource centric, it's easier than ever to accomplish this.
You are forgetting that in order to justify invading a country, there has to be something worth invading for, and the perceived value of the invasion has to exceed the perceived cost. Factored into that are the effects of politics on the market, which generally doesn't respond positively towards war.
I think your fundamental error here is that you're an intelligent and rational person, and tend to expect others to be similarly rational. People, both individually and in groups, regularly make highly irrational and unintelligent decisions. What is rational about wanting to wipe some particular ethnicity or religion from the face of the earth, for example? And, keep in mind that in many countries, the arbitrary whim of a single irrational person can foolishly commit an entire nation to war.
History is re
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The writers of the US Constitution has the foundational documents of Sparta available to them. They deliberately chose to go in the other direction. This point seems to be one that is conveniently ignored by self-styled originalists.
Civilian control separate from noting sacrifice (Score:2)
The writers of the US Constitution has the foundational documents of Sparta available to them. They deliberately chose to go in the other direction. This point seems to be one that is conveniently ignored by self-styled originalists.
As I said, volunteering to go into harms way is not exclusively done by those in the military. The founding fathers would be another example of doing so. By signing the Declaration of Independence they publicly declared themselves traitors to the king and put their lives on the line.
That said, having the military subservient to the elected civilian leadership and respecting the special contributions and sacrifice that members of the military make are two very different things. They are very compatible wi
Re: (Score:2)
I think the militaristic jingoism is a result of how the US came into existence - through war.
I mean, most countries only have one day to remember their war dead (Nov 11), while the US does the same (Memorial Day), as well as those in service (Veterans Day). Interestingly, while
Re: (Score:1)
And compare it to how we vilify the civil service as evil, corrupt and incompetent nepotists who engage in nothing but beurocratic paralysis.
Especially here on Slashdot where the government can do nothing right EXCEPT if they're in the military or NASA and maybe not even then.
Re: (Score:1)
I think servicemen in WWII were paying a large enough price
How very sentimental of you.
However it's a shame you've dragged the first post into trite offtopic self-indulgence, because the relevant lesson was that exposing a large proportion of the population to free information revitalized the publishing industry.
I suppose that's the lesson the DRM mongers infesting Slashdot don't want people discussing. You've served them well.
Discounted not free (Score:5, Interesting)
6 cents a book at current prices seems more like Amazon's discounted books business model. So it's not exactly free. Hell even brick and mortar stores conduct cut-price "sales". And at war time, reading books would have been a luxury both at home and at the battlefield. So selling them at the cost of production or at lost is more likely investing for the future loyalty of customers.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I don't think the soldiers directly paid for them; instead the books were purchased by the army and given out to the soldiers free.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, I see it more like the razor/blade "loss-leader" model, or the "first one's free to get you hooked" free-samples model, rather than the "freemium" model...
Re: (Score:3)
As I recall on aspect of the cheap printing was the pulp book. Publisher would print and ship paper backs to stores en masse knowing that most would not sell. Those that did not would simply be returned, maybe with the cover torn off, and pulped back into paper that could be reused to make the next book. Could these book have been the equivalent of
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I have one of those books and actually, it's printed on higher-quality paper than the bulk of my other paperbacks.
It's a "pocket book of quotations" and in the front there's an apology for including quotes from Hitler, saying that a well-rounded person should know what was said even by the evil and despicable.
Re: (Score:2)
There's also the marketing angle - every company that contributed in even the smallest way to the war effort made damm sure to trumpet it in their advertising and promotional materials, both during the war and for a period after.
And yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
So many damn kids these days use the idiotic phrase "Oh, I don't read" whenever I try to recommend a good book.
Excuse me? Reading for pleasure is one of those things that opens up your mind to new possibilities, that is a window into a new world, that doesn't result in the brainrot of modern TV programming.
So many US Soldiers spend all their free time playing video games. (source: was in the US Army for 4 years)
Get off of work? Play video games. Weekend? Play video games and drink booze. Rinse repeat.
The majority don't take advantage of the educational benefits while in the service, don't take the initiative to research things themselves. I knew more about Field Artillery then the vast majority of my unit while being a paperpusher because I'd look things up.
Regardless of the ease of access to books, if picking up a console controller takes less effort, that's what people will gravitate towards.
Watching countless of hours of TV shows on netflix, playing Call of Duty for hours on end, there is no critical thinking. It's just accepting prepackaged crap.
Books though, they help to open the mind. I'm not saying that reading books automatically make a person a genius who succeeds at everything, but they do make you think. Any thinking is better than no thinking.
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Interesting)
Regardless of the ease of access to books, if picking up a console controller takes less effort, that's what people will gravitate towards.
Then perhaps the right way to accomplish this is to open up the consoles to e-book authors and illustrators.
What is that you're writing... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When the earthquake that destroyed Christchurch struck
Destroyed? Hardly.
Re: (Score:1)
So many damn kids these days use the idiotic phrase "Oh, I don't read" whenever I try to recommend a good book.
They may just be trying to avoid an annoying bore.
Are we really living in the age of too much information, or do all generations feel like this?
Good question. It seems like human nature to feel as though what's happening now is unique. But there has been a measurable shift: in 2011, Americans took in five times as much information every day as they did in 1986. During our leisure time alone, we now process on average 100,000 words each day.
http://www.newscientist.com/ar... [newscientist.com]
Re: (Score:2)
so escape in a fantasy written on paper is better than escape in a fantasy on a TV screen, same thing man, escape.
Why waste your time reading treasure island when you could be using that time to learn productive and useful skills then? Fucking kids of the past, always reading horse hooie novels about places that dont exist!
naw get off ma lawn!
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing new. Back when I was in the Navy (onboard an SSBN) in the 80's, it was movies or playing cards or zoning out with a cassette player and a set of headphones for most of the crew.
Excuse me? Ho
With Inflation... (Score:5, Informative)
6 cents in 1943 was roughly the same as 83 cents now, and $2.00 then would be a whopping $27.54 today.
Re: (Score:1)
Two dollars is a lot - paperbacks I bought in the late 1970's were under a dollar so your theory about an inflated price does look plausible.
don't lavish too much praise (Score:2)
cheap, paperback books to the military for just six cents a copy, at a time when almost all the other books they printed cost more than two dollars
Sounds like a bogus comparison. The paperbacks were sold to the government in huge quantities at six cents each. But I expect that the comparison of "more than two dollars" is being made to hard cover books, likely even at retail rather than in bulk. I'm old enough to remember buying new paperbacks retail as low as thirty cents each in the late fifties and
Re: (Score:2)
The paperbacks were sold to the government in huge quantities at six cents each.
And the publisher probably did not have to deal with the normal shipping. Gov't trucks probably showed up and the printing facility and took custody of the books.
Freeeemium (Score:1)
Those GIs would have cringed, then vomited, upon hearing the word "freemium".
Re: (Score:2)
They would have upchucked their freedom fries?
Re: (Score:3)
freemium model?? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a freemium model, more than 70 years ago.
How?
They were given out for FREE, now "freemium" means the game is "free" but you are inundated with "in app purchases", so free but not really free.
I'm missing the part where the book demanded payment to be able to read past page 5 or some nonsense.
Re: (Score:3)
Worked for cigarettes, too (Score:4, Informative)
The tobacco companies went after servicemen in WW1 & WW2; got several generations addicted to smoking.
and the college price was X100 higher (Score:3)
and the college price was X100 higher
Re: (Score:1)
Not really. My first quarter at a big ten college in the midwest, in the fall of 1977, the tuition was about $800 for the quarter.
It was much, much cheaper than that a decade earlier.
Re: (Score:2)
talking about books
Winterhilfswerk (Score:2)
The Germans also had the Winter Charity (Winterhilfswerk), which printed millions of books for German soldiers, both propaganda and stories, humor, songbooks, etc.
I wouldn't be too surprised if the Brits and the Russians did something similar.
Re: (Score:3)
The Germans also had the Winter Charity (Winterhilfswerk), which printed millions of books for German soldiers, both propaganda and stories, humor, songbooks, etc.
I wouldn't be too surprised if the Brits and the Russians did something similar.
Brits did. My dad was in WW2, I remember seeing some Army issue paperbacks in the family bookshelves back in Surrey.
Brits also did free concerts (anyone else read 'The Cruel Sea'?) and suchlike. ENSA was the organization (can't remember what the acronym was for). I guess the UK equivalent of whatever organization sent Bob Hope around the world, entertaining the troops for the US.
Everything old... (Score:3)
This illustrates how new technologies enable phenomena which are not as revolutionary as some people like to claim.
True, they are making an impact and they can be important, and from time to time there are genuine novelties, but most things that are nauseatingly overhyped these days are something old but "on a computer!".
Social media, for example, was trumpeted as enabling the Arab Spring, and, yes, it's role was significant, but it was not qualitatively different from movements that in the past used audio tape, telegraph, letters, printing press, people sailing, people walking, etc.
Re: (Score:3)
Information wants to be free (Score:3)
"Information wants to be free" is incredibly misunderstood.
First, it is information, and does not want anything. It cannot want anything.
Second, when someone learns something, their first instinct is to share it. Arcade game cheat, little known factoid, best restaurant in a different city, how to apply blush, or really anything that someone deems significant.
Third, publishers took hardcover books and printed them sideways on a magazine press. This was to reduce the loss on the discount.
Fourth, the intent apparently was to make readers of men. This is a business model, unrelated to what information wants or does not want. Whether they covered costs or not, publishers got a huge bulk order which may have sold for 25 cents instead of 200 cents.
I did not read the Council on Books in Wartime link, but I assume that's what people here want to actually discuss.
Nonetheless, this is unrelated to information wanting to be free. Please, just make a goddamned effort to understand words before using them.
Re: (Score:2)
"Information wants to be free" is an obvious anthropomorphization; of course it can't literally "want" to be free, what's being referred to is the negative consequences that happen when we try to restrict resharing of information: you could almost imagine the information as a person being unhappy and protesting, whenever is censored.
Heard on NPR (Score:3, Interesting)
World War II starts, and a group of publishers, paper manufacturers, editors [and] librarians get together in New York. And they decide that men serving in the Army and Navy need something to read. ... They printed over 1,000 titles of different books, and they sent over a million copies of these books to sailors and soldiers serving overseas and also to [prisoners of war] in prison camps in Japan and Germany through an arrangement with the Red Cross.
The greatest distribution of the Armed Services Editions was on the eve of D-Day. Eisenhower's staff made sure that every guy stepping onto a landing craft in the south of England right on the eve of D-Day would have an Armed Services Edition in his pocket. They were sized as long rectangles meant to fit in the servicemen's pockets. (Her assertion was it was this service which reintroduced American's to Gatsby)
--Maureen Corrigan talking about her book, So We Read On: How the Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures
Re:Heard on NPR (Score:5, Funny)
When Fitzgerald died in 1940 in Hollywood, his last royalty check was for $13.13. Remaindered copies of the second printing of The Great Gatsby were moldering away in [publisher] Scribner's warehouse.
World War II starts, and a group of publishers, paper manufacturers, editors [and] librarians get together in New York. And they decide that men serving in the Army and Navy need something to read. ... They printed over 1,000 titles of different books, and they sent over a million copies of these books to sailors and soldiers serving overseas and also to [prisoners of war] in prison camps in Japan and Germany through an arrangement with the Red Cross.
The greatest distribution of the Armed Services Editions was on the eve of D-Day. Eisenhower's staff made sure that every guy stepping onto a landing craft in the south of England right on the eve of D-Day would have an Armed Services Edition in his pocket. They were sized as long rectangles meant to fit in the servicemen's pockets. (Her assertion was it was this service which reintroduced American's to Gatsby)
--Maureen Corrigan talking about her book, So We Read On: How the Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures
I remember once that someone carried a bullet from d-day around with him, and kept it in his pocket for luck. Once he tripped, landed on his back in the street. At the same time, someone in the building dropped a book from a window accidentally. The book was a hardback, fell - but bounced harmlessly off the bullet in the guy's pocket.
The guy always said that if it hadn't been for that bullet, the book would have killed him.
.06 is not free. (Score:2)
$.06 is about 80 cents today. That's not free. You may think it's a minor distinction, but the truth is it's not. We know from repeated sociological studies that people treat free as a different category than something that's charged for. And if you establish the value early on as free, it's VERY hard to go back and get people to pay later on.
That's totally different than charging 80 cents in 2014 dollars. I'd also imagine that being in the military has different expectations than civilian life. It'
Lessons learned for other industries ... ? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)