‘History tells us, that from the moment when the moral forces on which a civilisation rested have lost their strength, its final dissolution is brought about by those unconscious and brutal crowds known, justifiably enough, as barbarians. Civilisations as yet have only been created and directed by a small intellectual aristocracy, never by crowds. Crowds are only powerful for destruction.’
The Crowd is one of the most influential studies on group psychology and crowd behaviour. Its impact was profound, with readers ranging from Theodore Roosevelt and Sigmund Freud to Benito Mussolini and Vladimir Lenin. While the focus of the book is on group psychology, the subjects covered by Le Bon also range from history and politics to individual psychology. His grasp on these various subjects allows him to create a masterful thesis on the development of world history based on the psychology of crowds.
For the practical reader, The Crowd is not merely a book of academic value. Any reader who would like to know the methods of generating support from groups of individuals would do well to heed Le Bon’s advices.
Forming crowds is a fundamental instinct of humans and understanding the psychological behaviour of crowds will help us understand these turbulent times. Le Bon’s seminal study provides much explanations for the dangerous tribalism that has infected the world today.
Gustave Le Bon was a French polymath whose areas of interest included physics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and medicine. He is best known for his work The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, which is considered to be one of the most important works on group psychology and behaviour. Le Bon’s works were read by figures ranging from Theodore Roosevelt and Sigmund Freud to Benito Mussolini and Vladimir Lenin. Other figures influenced by Le Bon's works include Oswald Spengler and José Ortega y Gasset.