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9781596059757
- ISBN-10:
- 1596059753
- ISBN-13:
- 9781596059757
- Pub. Date:
- 10/01/2006
- Publisher:
- Cosimo Classics
- ISBN-10:
- 1596059753
- ISBN-13:
- 9781596059757
- Pub. Date:
- 10/01/2006
- Publisher:
- Cosimo Classics
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Overview
"Man, as part of a multitude, is a very different being from the same man as an isolated individual. His conscious individuality vanishes in the unconscious personality of the crowd," observed author Gustave Le Bon. In his 1896 classic of social psychology, The Crowd, Le Bon conducted a landmark investigation of mob mentality. His subsequent work, The Psychology of Revolution, takes a closer look at his observations on the subject and his analogy of crowd behavior as an infectious disease -- a sickness that passes from person to person, obliterating individuality and inciting irrationality and mindless destructiveness. Le Bon examines the psychology of revolutions in general, both religious and political, in addition to the mental and emotional qualities of the movements' leaders. Most of his examples are drawn from French history, with a particular emphasis on the personalities and events of the French Revolution: its origins; its rational, affective, mystic, and collective influences; and the conflict between ancestral influences and revolutionary principles. Le Bon concludes with an enlightening survey of revolutionary principles in the early nineteenth century, tracing the progress and evolution of democratic beliefs.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781596059757 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Cosimo Classics |
Publication date: | 10/01/2006 |
Pages: | 340 |
Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.76(d) |
About the Author
Charles-Marie Gustave Le Bon (F 7 May 1841 - 13 December 1931) was a leading French polymath whose areas of interest included anthropology, psychology, sociology, medicine, invention, and physics.[1][2][3] He is best known for his 1895 work The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, which is considered one of the seminal works of crowd psychology.[4][5] A native of Nogent-le-Rotrou, Le Bon qualified as a doctor of medicine at the University of Paris in 1866. He opted against the formal practice of medicine as a physician, instead beginning his writing career the same year of his graduation. He published a number of medical articles and books before joining the French Army after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. Defeat in the war coupled with being a first-hand witness to the Paris Commune of 1871 strongly shaped Le Bon's worldview. He then travelled widely, touring Europe, Asia and North Africa. He analysed the peoples and the civilisations he encountered under the umbrella of the nascent field of anthropology, developing an essentialist view of humanity, and invented a portable cephalometer during his travels. In the 1890s, he turned to psychology and sociology, in which fields he released his most successful works. Le Bon developed the view that crowds are not the sum of their individual parts, proposing that within crowds there forms a new psychological entity, the characteristics of which are determined by the "racial unconscious" of the crowd. At the same time he created his psychological and sociological theories, he performed experiments in physics and published popular books on the subject, anticipating the mass-energy equivalence and prophesising the Atomic Age. Le Bon maintained his eclectic interests up until his death in 1931. Ignored or maligned by sections of the French academic and scientific establishment during his life due to his politically conservative and reactionary views, Le Bon was critical of democracy and socialism. Le Bon's works were influential to such disparate figures as Theodore Roosevelt and Benito Mussolini, Sigmund Freud and José Ortega y Gasset, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin.
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Revision of History | 11 | |
Part I | The Psychological Elements of Revolutionary Movements | |
Book I | General Characteristics of Revolutions | |
Chapter I. | Scientific and Political Revolutions | 23 |
1. | Classification of Revolutions | 23 |
2. | Scientific Revolutions | 25 |
3. | Political Revolutions | 26 |
4. | The results of Political Revolutions | 31 |
Chapter II. | Religious Revolutions | 34 |
1. | The importance of the study of Religious Revolutions in respect of the comprehension of the great Political Revolutions | 34 |
2. | The beginnings of the Reformation and its first disciples | 35 |
3. | Rational value of the doctrines of the Reformation | 37 |
4. | Propagation of the Reformation | 39 |
5. | Conflict between different religious beliefs. The impossibility of tolerance | 40 |
6. | The results of Religious Revolutions | 46 |
Chapter III. | The Action of Governments in Revolutions | 49 |
1. | The feeble resistance of Governments in time of Revolution | 49 |
2. | How the resistance of Governments may overcome Revolution | 53 |
3. | Revolutions effected by Governments. Examples: China, Turkey, &c. | 54 |
4. | Social elements which survive the changes of Government after Revolution | 58 |
Chapter IV. | The Part Played by the People in Revolutions | 60 |
1. | The stability and malleability of the national mind | 60 |
2. | How the People regards Revolution | 63 |
3. | The supposed part of the People during Revolution | 66 |
4. | The popular entity and its constituent elements | 69 |
Book II | The forms of Mentality Prevalent During Revolution | |
Chapter I. | Individual Variations of Character in time of Revolution | 75 |
1. | Transformations of Personality | 75 |
2. | Elements of character predominant in time of Revolution | 77 |
Chapter II. | The Mystic Mentality and the Jacobin Mentality | 86 |
1. | Classification of mentalities predominant in time of Revolution | 86 |
2. | The Mystic Mentality | 87 |
3. | The Jacobin Mentality | 92 |
Chapter III. | The Revolutionary and Criminal Mentalities | 97 |
1. | The Revolutionary Mentality | 97 |
2. | The Criminal Mentality | 99 |
Chapter IV. | The Psychology of Revolutionary Crowds | 102 |
1. | General characteristics of the crowd | 102 |
2. | How the stability of the racial mind limits the oscillations of the mind of the crowd | 105 |
3. | The role of the leader in Revolutionary Movements | 109 |
Chapter V. | The Psychology of the Revolutionary Assemblies | 113 |
1. | Psychological characteristics of the great Revolutionary Assemblies | 113 |
2. | The Psychology of the Revolutionary Clubs | 116 |
3. | A suggested explanation of the progressive exaggeration of sentiments in assemblies | 119 |
Part II | ||
Book I | The Origins of the French Revolution | |
Chapter I. | The Opinions of Historians concerning the French Revolution | 123 |
1. | The Historians of the Revolution | 123 |
2. | The theory of Fatalism in respect of the Revolution | 126 |
3. | The hesitation of recent Historians of the Revolution | 130 |
4. | Impartiality in History | 133 |
Chapter II. | The Psychological Foundations of the Ancien Regime | 137 |
1. | The Absolute Monarchy and the Basis of the Ancien Regime | 137 |
2. | The inconveniences of the Ancien Regime | 138 |
3. | Life under the Ancien Regime | 141 |
4. | Evolution of Monarchical feeling during the Revolution | 144 |
Chapter III. | Mental Anarchy at the time of the Revolution and the influence attributed to the Philosophers | 147 |
1. | Origin and Propagation of Revolutionary Ideas | 147 |
2. | The supposed influence of the Philosophers of the eighteenth century upon the Genesis of the Revolution. Their dislike of Democracy | 152 |
3. | The philosophical ideas of the Bourgeoisie at the time of the Revolution | 156 |
Chapter IV. | Psychological Illusions respecting the French Revolution | 158 |
1. | Illusions respecting Primitive Man, the return to the State of Nature, and the Psychology of the People | 158 |
2. | Illusions respecting the possibility of separating Man from his Past and the power of Transformation attributed to the Law | 160 |
3. | Illusions respecting the Theoretical Value of the great Revolutionary Principles | 162 |
Book II | The Rational, Affective, Mystic, and Collective Influences Active During the Revolution | |
Chapter I. | The Psychology of the Constituent Assembly | 167 |
1. | Psychological influences active during the French Revolution | 167 |
2. | Dissolution of the Ancien Regime. The assembling of the States-General | 170 |
3. | The constituent Assembly | 172 |
Chapter II. | The Psychology of the Legislative Assembly | 183 |
1. | Political events during the life of the Legislative Assembly | 183 |
2. | Mental characteristics of the Legislative Assembly | 185 |
Chapter III. | The Psychology of the Convention | 190 |
1. | The Legend of the Convention | 190 |
2. | Results of the triumph of the Jacobin Religion | 193 |
3. | Mental characteristics of the Convention | 197 |
Chapter IV. | The Government of the Convention | 202 |
1. | The activity of the Clubs and the Commune during the Convention | 202 |
2. | The Government of France during the Convention: the Terror | 205 |
3. | The End of the Convention. The Beginnings of the Directory | 210 |
Chapter V. | Instances of Revolutionary Violence | 213 |
1. | Psychological Causes of Revolutionary Violence | 213 |
2. | The Revolutionary Tribunals | 215 |
3. | The Terror in the Provinces | 218 |
Chapter VI. | The Armies of the Revolution | 223 |
1. | The Revolutionary Assemblies and the Armies | 223 |
2. | The Struggle of Europe against the Revolution | 224 |
3. | Psychological and Military Factors which determined the success of the Revolutionary Armies | 227 |
Chapter VII. | Psychology of the Leaders of the Revolution | 232 |
1. | Mentality of the men of the Revolution. The respective influence of violent and feeble characters | 232 |
2. | Psychology of the Commissaries or Representatives "on Mission" | 234 |
3. | Danton and Robespierre | 238 |
4. | Fouquier-Tinville, Marat, Billaud-Varenne, &c. | 245 |
5. | The destiny of those Members of the Convention who survived the Revolution | 250 |
Book III | The Conflict Between Ancestral Influences and Revolutionary Principles | |
Chapter I. | The Last Convulsions of Anarchy. The Directory | 252 |
1. | Psychology of the Directory | 252 |
2. | Despotic Government of the Directory. Recrudescence of the Terror | 255 |
3. | The Advent of Bonaparte | 259 |
4. | Causes of the Duration of the Revolution | 262 |
Chapter II. | The Restoration of Order. The Consular Republic | 265 |
1. | How the work of the Revolution was confirmed by the Consulate | 265 |
2. | The re-organisation of France by the Consulate | 267 |
3. | Psychological elements which determined the success of the work of the Consulate | 270 |
Chapter III. | Political Results of the Conflict between Traditions and the Revolutionary Principles during the last Century | 275 |
1. | The psychological causes of the continued Revolutionary Movements to which France has been subject | 275 |
2. | Summary of a century's Revolutionary Movements in France | 280 |
Part III | The Recent Evolution of the Revolutionary Principles | |
Chapter I. | The Progress of Democratic Beliefs since the Revolution | 289 |
1. | Gradual propagation of Democratic Ideas after the Revolution | 289 |
2. | The unequal influence of the three fundamental principles of the Revolution | 292 |
3. | The Democracy of the "Intellectuals" and Popular Democracy | 293 |
4. | Natural Inequalities and Democratic Equalisation | 296 |
Chapter II. | The Results of Democratic Evolution | 300 |
1. | The influence upon social evolution of theories of no rational value | 300 |
2. | The Jacobin Spirit and the Mentality created by Democratic Beliefs | 302 |
3. | Universal Suffrage and its representatives | 307 |
4. | The craving for Reforms | 310 |
5. | Social distinctions in Democracies and Democratic Ideas in various countries | 312 |
Chapter III. | The New Forms of Democratic Belief | 316 |
1. | The conflict between Capital and Labour | 316 |
2. | The evolution of the Working Classes and the Syndicalist Movement | 318 |
3. | Why certain modern Democratic Governments are gradually being transformed into Governments by Administrative Castes | 322 |
Conclusions | 326 |
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