Fame is like lightning. Taylor Swift Bob Dylan Leonardo da Vinci Jane Austen Oprah
Winfrey-all of them were struck. Why? What if they hadn't been? Consider the most famous music
group in history. What would the world be like if the Beatles never existed? This was the
question posed by the playful thought-provoking 2019 film Yesterday in which a young
completely unknown singer starts performing Beatles hits to a world that has never heard them.
Would the Fab Four's songs be as phenomenally popular as they are in our own Beatle-infused
world? The movie asserts that they would but is that true? Was the success of the Beatles
inevitable due to their amazing matchless talent? Maybe. It's hard to imagine our world
without its stars icons and celebrities. They are part of our culture and history seeming
permanent and preordained. But as Harvard law professor (and passionate Beatles fan) Cass
Sunstein shows in this startling book that is far from the case. Focusing on both famous and
forgotten (or simply overlooked) artists and luminaries in music literature business science
politics and other fields he explores why some individuals become famous and others don't and
offers a new understanding of the roles played by greatness luck and contingency in the
achievement of fame. Sunstein examines recent research on informational cascades network
effects and group polarization to probe the question of how people become famous. He explores
what ends up in the history books and in the literary canon and how that changes radically over
time. He delves into the rich and entertaining stories of a diverse cast of famous characters
from John Keats William Blake and Jane Austen to Bob Dylan Ayn Rand and Stan Lee-as well as
John Paul George and Ringo. How to Become Famous takes you on a fun captivating and at
times profound journey that will forever change your perspective on the latest celebrity's
fifteen minutes of fame and on what vaults some to the top-and leaves others in the dust.
