The first half or so of the book is perhaps the most compelling, particularly for today’s readers, given the rise over the past decade or so of nationalist, populist movements in so many Western countries. The essays are grouped together into a handful of chapters, each covering a different aspect of the mass movement phenomenon. Along the way, he makes clear that though there can be “Good and Bad Mass Movements,” to quote the title of one section, all share common traits, and succeed or fail for the same principal reasons. (xi)Īs the subtitle makes clear, in this slim but cogent work Hoffer provides his, “Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements.” Constructed as a series of brief essays - some just a sentence long, others a few paragraphs - the book examines the “essential characteristics” of all mass movements, from the social conditions that set them in motion, to the personality types that swell their ranks and the overall arc of their development. It does not maintain that all movements are identical, but that they share certain essential characteristics which give them a family likeness.
This book deals with some peculiarities common to all mass movements, be they religious movements, social revolutions or nationalist movements. In the opening lines of his Preface, Hoffer lays out his thesis: Quite a bit, argues Eric Hoffer in his engaging treatise The True Believer - among the three mass movements mentioned above as well as many others.
What commonality, after all, between conditions in the ancient Roman Empire, 18th century France and post-WWI Germany? When considering the histories of mass movements such as the spread of Christianity, the French Revolution or the rise of Nazism, the proximate causes for these events can seem quite distinct. The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (1951)
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