True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“Its theme is political fanaticism | with which it deals severely and brilliantly.”    —New YorkerA 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. In times of crisis | the great works of philosophy help us make sense of the world. The Harper Perennial Resistance Library is a special five-book series highlighting short classic works of independent thought that illuminate the nature of truth | humanity's dangerous attraction to authoritarianism | the influence of media and mass communication | and the philosophy of resistance—all critical in understanding today's politically charged world.