The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

"Its theme is political fanaticism, with which it deals severely and brilliantly." --New Yorker

The famous bestseller with "concise insight into what drives the mind of the fanatic and the dynamics of a mass movement" (Wall St. Journal) by the legendary San Francisco longshoreman.

A stevedore on the San Francisco docks in the 1940s, Eric Hoffer wrote philosophical treatises in his spare time while living in the railroad yards. The True Believer--the first and most famous of his books--was made into a bestseller when President Eisenhower cited it during one of the earliest television press conferences.

Called a "brilliant and original inquiry" and "a genuine contribution to our social thought" by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., this landmark in the field of social psychology is completely relevant and essential for understanding the world today as it delivers a visionary, highly provocative look into the mind of the fanatic and a penetrating study of how an individual becomes one.

Author: Eric Hoffer
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 01/19/2010
Pages: 192
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.35lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.20w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780060505912

About the Author
Hoffer, Eric: -

Eric Hoffer (1902 -- 1983) was self-educated. He worked in restaurants, as a migrant fieldworker, and as a gold prospector. After Pearl Harbor, he worked as a longshoreman in San Francisco for twenty-five years. The author of more than ten books, including The Passionate State of Mind, The Ordeal of Change, and The Temper of Our Time, Eric Hoffer was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983.