How to Win Friends and Influence People is a book by Dale Carnegie, published in 1936. Over 30 million copies have been sold worldwide. The text should be a “must-read” for those trying to learn how to network. It is classified as a self-help book, but in addition to that, it is a book about the fundamentals of handling people.

Twelve Things This Book Will Do For You

1. Get you out of a mental rut, and give you new thoughts, visions, and ambitions.

2. Enable you to make friends quickly and easily.

3. Increase your popularity.

4. Help you to win people to your way of thinking.

5. Increase your influence, prestige, and ability to get things done.

6. Enable you to win new clients and new customers.

7. Increase your earning power.

8. Make you a better salesman, a better executive.

9. Help you to handle complaints, avoid arguments, and keep your human contacts smooth and pleasant.

10. Make you a better speaker, a more entertaining conversationalist.

11. Make the principles of psychology easy for you to apply in your daily contacts.

12. Help you to arouse enthusiasm among your associates.

“Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends & Influence People is one of the best-selling self-help books of all time. The book has influenced many people, from Warren Buffett to Charles Manson.

Those two people, Buffet and Manson, really express the weirdness of Carnegie’s book and show that you can read in a couple of different ways, dividing the book’s two intentions far more than was initially intended.

While people like Buffett praise it for its management techniques, it’s also easy to see how one could use those same techniques for evil. Which is to say, depending on who you are, you can read Carnegie’s book in two distinct ways: to win friends or to influence people.

Which route you take can change your feelings about the book, yourself, and relationships.” (see article in Lifehacker)