Psychology of Revolution

Great

I have already read his work on The Crowd and found it a brilliant study. Or perhaps just because I agree with it. However in this he tends to lean too far towards the irrational, to the emotional and mystical. There is this aspect in the behaviour of a crowd but I do think that Le Bon tends to try too hard to make a point and dismisses the rational. There were the 'men of the mountain' as Robespierre and St Just who were extremes and left behind the apparent rationality of their thinking at the beginning of the Revolution. Their authoritarian mood tended to take over and they were convinced that they were right. They also had to appeal emotionally to the 'Sans Culottes' and this need led them astray and to lead the Assembly to authorise the terror and the rule of the 'committee of Public Safety'. The Intellectuals of the left at first stirred up Revolutionalry ardour and then was driven along by the emotional state which t hey had induced. I do not think that Le Bon full understood this.

Arrived very quickly and in good condition too. Synopsis is excellent and lays bare the many pretentous ideas mankind likes to hide behind whilst conducting the very opposite of what is being preached to the masses!

I read it, a bit long winded. Of interest historically