A short review of a short book for #bookstr
This time, “The True Believer” by Eric Hoffer.
Consider this a “replacement” for Desmet’s widely acclaimed “The Psychology of Totalitarianism” which I read and reviewed earlier this year: nostr:note1xkaxly6jgs8r64jmmkv0fnftk6yesdfdj2asg3v96lxm8qadj0tq8rmkep
Desmet’s book remains the worst I’ve read this year. This book does a much better job of explaining that psychology - how it works, why it works, on whom, and by what tactics.
It’s all rather simple but when you combine with Le Bon’s “The Crowd”, you can understand why and how that is the case.
You could knock this over in less than 2 hours and would undoubtedly come away with a better understanding of how and why totalitarianism works after that than slogging through Desmet’s love letter to Hannah Arendt.
