The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (Solis Classics) - Softcover

Le Bon, Gustave

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1907947337 ISBN 13: 9781907947339

Publisher: Solis Press, 2014

Synopsis

In this fascinating book, Gustave Le Bon examines the psychology of crowds. He posits that crowds have personalities, just like individuals, and that individuals change when part of a crowd.

“The most careful observations seem to prove that an individual immersed for some length of time in a crowd in action soon finds himself—either in consequence of the magnetic influence given out by the crowd, or from some other cause of which we are ignorant—in a special state, which much resembles the state of fascination in which the hypnotized individual finds himself in the hands of the hypnotizer. The activity of the brain being paralysed in the case of the hypnotized subject, the latter becomes the slave of all the unconscious activities of his spinal cord, which the hypnotizer directs at will. The conscious personality has entirely vanished; will and discernment are lost. All feelings and thoughts are bent in the direction determined by the hypnotizer.”

This edition has been completely reset in fresh type.

About this title

Review

"Insightful for its apprehension of the primitive nature of crowds..."

About the Author

Gustave Le Bon (1841 -1931) was a French social psychologist, sociologist, and amateur physicist. He was the author of several works in which he expounded theories of national traits, racial superiority, herd behavior and crowd psychology. His work on crowd psychology became important during the first half of the twentieth century when it was used by media researchers such as Hadley Cantril and Herbert Blumer to describe the reactions of subordinate groups to media.

Edition details

• Publisher: Solis Press
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1907947337
• ISBN 13: 9781907947339
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 152