Title:
The true believer : thoughts on the nature of mass movements
Author:
Edition:
First Perennial Modern Classics edition.
Publication Date:
2002
Publication Information:
New York : Harper Perennial Modern Classics, [2002]
©2002
Physical Description:
xiii, 177 pages ; 20 cm.
ISBN:
9780060505912
9780062930866
Abstract:
A stevedore on the San Francisco docks in the 1940s, Hoffer wrote philosophical treatises examining mass movements--from Christianity in its infancy to the national uprisings of modern times. His analysis of the psychology of mass movements is a brilliant and frightening study of the mind of the fanatic.
General Note:
Originally published: New York : Harper & Row, 1951.
Contents:
Part 1. The appeal of mass movements -- The desire for change -- The desire for substitutes -- The interchangeability of mass movements -- Part 2. The potential converts -- The role of the undesirables in human affairs -- The poor. The new poor ; The abjectly poor ; The free poor ; The creative poor ; The unified poor -- Misfits -- The inordinately selfish -- The ambitious facing unlimited opportunities -- Minorities -- The bored -- The sinners -- Part 3. United action and self-sacrifice -- Preface -- Factors promoting self-sacrifice. Identification with a collective whole ; Make-believe ; Deprecation of the present ; "Things which are not" ; Doctrine ; Fanaticism ; Mass movements and armies -- Unifying agents. Hatred ; Imitation ; Persuasion and coercion ; Leadership ; Action ; Suspicion ; The effects of unification -- Part 4. Beginning and end -- Men of words -- The fanatics -- The practical men of action -- Good and bad mass movements. The unattractiveness and sterility of the active phase ; Some factors which determine the length of the active phase ; Useful mass movements.
Language:
English
