Gustave Le Bon

The Psychology of Revolution Gustave Le Bon

"At no period of history did men so little grasp the present, so greatly ignore the past, and so poorly divine the future." According to Gustave Le Bon, The French Revolution lost its relevance as soon as the cry, "liberty, fraternity and equality," was reduced to equality: "Never did men speak so much to say so little; the empty verbiage and swollen emphasis swamp any truth there may be beneath their monotony and turgidity." Le Bon explores and exposes the central touchstones of instinct and reason as they relate to revolt, and how civilization invariably retrogresses to the primitive and barbaric when it launches revolution.
In this discussion of the general psychological causes of revolution, he draws detailed illustrations of fundamental points from the French Revolution, especially the period from 1789 to 1800, and he gives a detailed history of the French Revolution, its personalities, its high and low points, and the circumstances that have made it important to peoples across the globe to this day. When Le Bon assures us that "By replacing individual initiative and responsibility by collective initia-tive and responsibility mankind would descend several steps on the scale of human values", we can safely conclude that he is not a big fan of socialism. Notoir Books is a publisher of books on topics of esoteric interests, eccentric memoirs, overlooked history, otherworldly stories and distinctive voices. You can visit us at notoirbooks.com for more.