[bmistree]

From the little I've read on the topic, there are many good reasons to be skeptical of the 600,000 copy figure cited here.

This [0] article summarizes some of the debate.

At a high level, the number seems to be derived from Thomas Paine's assertions that he sold 120,000 copies in the first three months of Common Sense's release. However, Paine had no way to measure this number and likely didn't even have a way to reasonably estimate it.

The article mentions a historian that analyzed data from the time (number of known printings and maximum batch size for a print run): "Putting all this together–twenty-five printings at a maximum of 3,000 each (even though most print runs were probably much less), Loughran places the far upper limit at 75,000, but she thinks the true number was much less than that."

I don't know much about Gatto or Dumbing Us Down. However, I personally don't find this quote persuasive, given the uncertainty around the 600k figure.

[0] https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/03/thomas-paines-inflated-...