A book with an intentionally cheeky title like “How to Become Famous” sounds more like the work of a teenaged TikTok star than a 69-year-old Harvard professor, but trust that Cass R. Sunstein knows what he’s talking about here.

During a recent conversation with Salon, the professor, former White House administrator and prolific author of books like "How Change Happens” says that “I’ve never had so much fun with a book” as he did with his eminently readable newest one. Taking the initially explosive, entirely enduring allure of The Beatles as his jumping off point, Sunstein explores the mysteries of why certain figures have made a lasting impact on cultural history. Some — like John, Paul, George, Ringo — have defined their own eras. Others — like Jane Austen and Robert Johnson — have grown in stature over time. What made them connect? And, significantly, why them and not the forgotten others among their talented peers?

Sunstein refuses to settle for simple explanations. “The idea that if you had an unhappy childhood, or if you just spend 10,000 hours on something, or if you really are determined to get on the radio, that it's going to work out,” he says, “is culturally present, but comical.” Instead, he suggests a variety of variables that reveal the complexity of the enduring glory that gives us a Stan Lee or a Joyce Carol Oates. And, as he discusses with Salon, the book is also a meditation on the human drive to contribute and to create. "If your work is remembered," he says, "then you actually helped people."

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

You talk in the book about the canon, about what it means to be a cult figure, all of these concepts about greatness. Yet fame, as you acknowledge, is a much more elusive concept, and often, one that is not about the test of time. Why “famous?" And what does “famous” mean to you?

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The title is, in a way, a joke. An act of mischief. The idea that there should be a book called "How to Become Famous” strikes me as ridiculously funny, because there is no recipe for becoming famous. The idea that if you had an unhappy childhood, or if you just spend 10,000 hours on something, or if you really are determined to get on the radio, that it's going to work out is culturally present, but comical.

"The idea that if you had an unhappy childhood or if you just spend 10,000 hours on something, that it's going to work, out is comical."

I wrote a paper for the Journal of Beatles Studies on Beatlemania, which is both a topic about fame and a topic about success. The Beatles, I think, are incredibly great. They are or were spectacularly successful, and they're famous. The origin of my interest was, “How did someone or someones become both super successful and very famous?”

There's Beatlemania, there's Christianity, there's Donald Trump, there's Barack Obama, there's William Shakespeare. And I want to insist that the mechanisms behind the success of all of these are the same. They manifest themselves in different ways. But this is about the imperialism of the mechanisms.

Recently in the Times, there was a story about how successful and famous Taylor Swift really is. And of course, the benchmark is the Beatles.

I actually did a fair bit of research on Ms. Swift. I'm a huge fan of hers, and I've been, I'm pleased to say, since 2012, when she sang “Mean” at the Grammys, and and it knocked my socks off. I thought "Who is this person? She's incredible.” Neil Young said Taylor Swift is the real deal. And I think Neil Young is unerring with respect to everything. If Neil Young vindicated my intuition, I thought, “She's really great.”

I did a lot of research on Taylor Swift. She makes appearances in the........

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