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One direct borrowing I believe from Knight's The economic organization was 
Roger Weiss' book which as I recall was titled The Economic System. 
 
Like Knight's book, Weiss' book was written I believe for the lower level 
undergrad social science courses in the College at U. of Chicago. As I 
recall, Weiss says in his preface something to the effect that anyone 
reading his book will see that his debt to Knight's The Economic 
Organization is large. My own recollection of perusing  the two books 
suggested that  Weiss was not being unfair to himself with this comment. 
Weiss taught in the College in the 1960's, 1970's and perhaps into the 
1980's. 
 
I do have  copy of the 1951 edition with dust jacket. As Ross is probably 
aware, the 1951 edition on the copyright page actually lists the copyright 
dates as 1933 and 1951 with Frank Knight holding the copyright for both 
dates. The back of the dust jacket just lists a number of other A.M. Kelley 
titles. The back inside fold of the dust jacket just lists a Kelley reprint 
of the second edition of Malthus' Principles of Political Economy. The 
front inside fold of the dust jacket gives the Hayek quote that Ross 
mentions and nothing else. 
 
The Hayek quote in full is: "There can be few contemporary works on 
economics which, without ever having been regularly published, have 
achieved such wide circulation and fame as Frank H. Knight's The Economic 
Organization. For nearly a generation the various typed and mimeographed 
editions have been extensively used and drawn up. It is really to be 
welcomed that this influential essay is now at last made available in 
permanent form." 
 
Incidentally, when I was an undergraduate at Chicago, I was assigned a 
paperback edition of the Economic Organization; as I recall it was a Harper 
Torchbook edition (you might try looking at the National Union Catalogue to 
look for library holdings of subsequent reprints of this book after 1951). 
I think I still have it somewhere, but can't immediately find it. I am not 
sure if this would have any additional comments either on the back or in a 
preface regarding the book. I took the course in question  in the fall 
quarter of 1970, so apparently the book was available in paperback edition 
then. The course was NOT an economics or social science course but that is 
probably another story. 
 
Since my understanding was that Knight wrote this book for use in the 
undergraduate college at Chicago, looking more at curriculum materials for 
the College from the 1930's on might reveal more about the genesis of the 
book and its immediate use in College the curriculum. But Ross may well 
have already explored this line of approach. 
 
David Mitch 
 
 
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