In a 1991 survey conducted for the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club, Man's Search for Meaning was named one of the 10 most influential books in the US.[7] At the time of Frankl's death in 1997, the book had sold over 10 million copies and had been translated into 24 languages. As of 2022 the book has sold 16 million copies and been printed in 52 languages.[8]
Gordon Allport, who wrote a preface to the book, described it as a "gem of dramatic narrative" which "provides a compelling introduction to the most significant psychological movement of our day".[9] Sarah Bakewell describes it as "an incredibly powerful and moving example of what existentialist thought can actually be for in real life"[10] while Mary Fulbrook praises "the way [Frankl] explores the importance of meaning in life as the key to survival."[11]
However, aspects of the book have garnered criticism. One of Frankl's main ideas in the book is that a positive attitude made one better equipped for surviving the camps. Richard Middleton-Kaplan has said that this implies, whether intentionally or unintentionally, that those who died had given up and that this paved the way for the idea of the Jews going like sheep to the slaughter.[12] Holocaust analyst Lawrence L. Langer criticises Frankl's promotion of logotherapy and says the book has a problematic subtext. He also accuses Frankl of having a tone of self-aggrandizement and a general inhumane sense of studying-detachment towards victims of the Holocaust.[13][14]
In his book Faith in Freedom, psychiatrist Thomas Szasz states that Frankl's survivor testimony was written to misdirect, and betrays instead an intent of a transparent effort to conceal Frankl's actions and his collaboration with the Nazis, and that, in the assessment of Raul Hilberg, the founder of Holocaust Studies, Frankl's historical account contains distortions akin to Binjamin Wilkomirski's memoirs, which were translated into nine languages before being exposed as deeply problematic (and according to the most radical interpretation 'false') in Hilberg's 1996 Politics of Memory.[15] Szasz's criticism of Frankl is not universally embraced.[16] Similarly, Hilberg's allegations have been rebutted by several reviewers.[17] Comparison between Frankl's memoirs and Wilkomirski's memoirs leveled by Szasz, however, could legitimately be dismissed altogether as an inapt and misleading analogy insofar as questions arose (and remained) as to whether or not Wilkomirski had ever been an inmate at a concentration camp, whereas this was never a question in Frankl's case: there is no doubt that he is a survivor.
Briefly: Conflicting views about the nature of memory under extreme conditions, as well as the sort of instinctual opportunism (for the sake of survival) or positive thinking mentality that often (one might even say 'usually' or 'almost always') correlated with long-term survival in the Nazi death camps, makes the memoir an important document of witness during the holocaust but also highlight the way in which it displays the cognitive and psychological limits of representing a situation like the Nazi extermination from an 'impartial' first person perspective.
