Video review — tap to play
Think and Grow Rich
Biographies and Memoirs, Business
EXTREMELY USEFULL! IN EVERY chapter of this book, mention has been made of the money-making secret which has made fortunes for more than five hundred exceedingly wealthy men whom I have carefully analyzed over a long period of years.
- Release Date
- 1937
- Length
- 204 pages
- Publisher
- Aldo Press
We may earn a commission if you buy through these links, at no extra cost to you.
Our Review
About the book
Napoleon Hill presents thirteen principles for achieving wealth and success, including desire, faith, persistence and organized planning. He claims to have drawn them from interviews with prominent figures of his day, beginning with Andrew Carnegie.
Our review
The granddaddy of success literature, powered by conviction more than evidence, and showing its age.
Hill’s influence is hard to overstate; whole shelves of motivational writing descend from this book. Its emphasis on a burning desire, a concrete goal and stubborn persistence still has motivational force, and his idea of a mastermind group, a circle of advisers who sharpen one another, remains useful. In places the writing has an evangelical energy that can lift a reader’s spirits on a bad day.
Much of the rest does not hold up. Hill’s claims about his interviews with famous industrialists are poorly documented, and his instructions on autosuggestion and mystical channels of thought drift into wishful thinking. The book implies that failure is mostly a failure of belief, which is unfair to anyone facing real structural barriers. Readers can mine it for a few durable habits, but it should be read as a historical artifact rather than a reliable guide.
What we loved
- Clear emphasis on definite goals and persistence
- The enduring mastermind group concept
- Historical window into the roots of self-help
Keep in mind
- Shaky documentation and mystical, unscientific claims
- Implies belief alone determines success
Read it if you like
Readers curious about self-help history, or fans of The Magic of Thinking Big and The Power of Positive Thinking.
The verdict
Historically important and occasionally inspiring, but more faith than method; read selectively.
