---
product_id: 7694918
title: "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Perennial Classics)"
price: "€ 23.60"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 7
url: https://www.desertcart.fi/products/7694918-the-true-believer-thoughts-on-the-nature-of-mass-movements
store_origin: FI
region: Finland
---

# The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Perennial Classics)

**Price:** € 23.60
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Perennial Classics)
- **How much does it cost?** € 23.60 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.fi](https://www.desertcart.fi/products/7694918-the-true-believer-thoughts-on-the-nature-of-mass-movements)

## Best For

- Customers looking for quality international products

## Why This Product

- Free international shipping included
- Worldwide delivery with tracking
- 15-day hassle-free returns

## Description

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Perennial Classics) [Hoffer, Eric] on desertcart.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Perennial Classics)

Review: Hoffer's keen observations are timeless. - This a a great book, highly relevant these days, a classic that everyone should read. History reveals man's shocking capacity for mass madness and insane cruelty. What is the good, the purpose of pain, suffering, decay and so much abject brutality? One answer is simply that in a polarity universe the one extreme of purity and goodness cannot exist without the other extreme, meaning contamination and evil. In the temporal hologram, everything rots. It is simple physics, or rather metaphysics. A more western oriented explanation of the purpose for such brutal and destructive energies is offered by the plain speaking, down-to-earth American philosopher Eric Hoffer in his classic astute and insightful book, `The True Believer, Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements' [1951]: "The discarded and rejected [of any society] are often the raw material of a nation's future. The stone builders reject becomes the cornerstone of a new world. A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, decent, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come. It was not the irony of history that the undesired in the countries of Europe should have crossed an ocean to build a new world on the [North American] continent. Only they could do it." From this pragmatic assessment we may approach the idea that those we consider to be the dregs of society, the losers, and the various forms of eroding contamination, chemical or ideological -- are in fact the seed store of new forms. Bacteria and viruses, which destroy weakened living cells, have been with us forever. In a cyclical universe, there must be energies that decay, dissolve, and destroy. Often these are hidden beyond our sight, decomposing matter under rocks, in putrid slime yucky-goo rubbish, or silently lurking inside our human bodies. Sometimes they are found in the malcontent, the alienated, misfits who in blaming others for their "spoiled lives" [Hoffer's words] overthrow the existing order. Hoffer counts political and religious fanatics such as Hitler and Lenin among these `true believers' who throughout history have murdered thousands in the name of truth. Eric Hoffer worked on the San Francisco docks as a stevedore in the 1940s. He was self-educated and his experiences in the realm of physical labour combined with a lack of ivory tower intellectual conditioning, which so is often removed from any real life, and therefore produced an extraordinary view of the human condition. I first read `The True Believer' back in Texas high school, perhaps 1962, and I admit that I did not and could not have understood it in those days -- but even in my tender green naive teens, I realized that there was something deeply profoundly true in this book. Because of the recent rumours of revolution, I remembered and thus reread this classic, which was reissued in 2010. Hoffer makes it unequivocally clear that what motivates the True Believer into fanaticism is his or her own lack. They are as he says the disaffected, the poor, the unemployed, the misfits, outcasts, minorities, adolescent youth, the ambitious, the obsessed, the impotent in mind or body, the inordinately selfish, the bored and sinners. "...they are wholly without reverence toward the present. They see their lives and the present as spoiled beyond remedy and they are ready to waste and wreck both: hence their recklessness and their will to chaos and anarchy...Thus they are among the early recruits of revolutions, mass migrations, and of religious, racial and chauvinist movements, and they imprint their mark upon these upheavals and movements which shape a nations character and history." Hoffer's keen observations are brilliant, timeless, and yet more relevant than ever.
Review: The Fruit of the Disaffected - This book likely reached its zenith of popularity 6 decades ago in the midst of the tumultuous 1960’s. Since then its profile as an essential must read has quietly diminished for a whole host of reasons, not least of which is the bare fact that reading itself has also quietly lost its place in the age of smart phones and computers. Now in the middle of the 3rd decade of the 21st century those still committed to reading important books may want to order this classic work. Why? Because what Hoffer analyzes in this piece is the nature of that individual who finds him or herself irretrievably abandoned to a cause whose pull is so beyond resisting that any personal life goal, personal commitment or personal relationship is tossed aside in rapturous self-surrender to a cause. This individual is the Radical- The True Believer. Radicals are a type and they emerge into and man Mass Movements during what Hoffer describes as the dynamic “Active Phase”. To understand the Radical Hoffer illuminates the psychological fear engendered in the infamous dictum by Jean Paul Sartre in his work Being and Nothingness that states “Man is condemned to be Free”. The weight of responsibility to navigate the manifold options and opportunities of total freedom with the corresponding risk of naked, atomistic failure is the driver to escape the responsibility of Freedom. The Radical, according to Hoffer, is one who has had a full taste of Freedom. His or her experience of such freedom was one of failure. Failure both objectively by the standards of the present societal order and subjectively by his or her own personal standards. With failure comes frustration. The radical is, according to Hoffer, first and foremost a frustrated soul. The Radical is looking for an escape. Where does the Radical escape to? Hoffer systematically argues that the only place of refuge from individual freedom and the corresponding risk of personal failure is within the group or the collective. Mass Movements are made up of a group or some form of a collective. Inside a Mass Movement the Radical garners shared anonymity within and with other members of the group. Hoffer’s thesis states that Mass Movements are revolutionary by nature. Mass Movements seek their own version of the promised land where all will be made right. In the Mass Movement the Radical finds his life tied to and imbued with a transcendent purpose. He or she has located within the Mass Movement self-worth that was otherwise unattainable after failing to become an independent self-directed and successful member of the larger society. In this penetrating work the author delineates an entire complex constellation of factors, various conditions and role players (such as the men of words and the men of action) that are essential elements of the Mass Movement. Hoffer provides plenty of historical examples of each found throughout the centuries. Example in case: Hoffer’s profile of the “frustrated” Radical roughly fits the Puritan who arrived on the shore of North America in and around 1630. Puritans challenged the established Church of England, which according to the Puritans maintained too many elements of the Catholic Church and needed to be purified. Seeking to fully express their faith without interference they risked life and limb to cross an ocean after which they faced the daunting task of creating a colony out of what was then wilderness. This was consistent with one of Hoffer’s identified societal reliefs for safely processing an internal mass movement – the relief is simply migration of the group or collective out of the larger society and into a foreign land. In the end, his book may have personal value if you know someone drawn to or you find yourself drawn to the siren song of some political, religious or other mass movement. This book may be the tool to keep you tied to the mast of your own personal life course while others jettison all restraint and throw themselves headlong into the throes of a Mass Movement where many find their fate cast upon the rocks.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #12,393 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #7 in Compulsive Behavior (Books) #21 in Political Philosophy (Books) #54 in Popular Social Psychology & Interactions |
| Customer Reviews | 4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars (2,402) |
| Dimensions  | 0.43 x 5.31 x 8 inches |
| ISBN-10  | 0060505915 |
| ISBN-13  | 978-0060505912 |
| Item Weight  | 7.4 ounces |
| Language  | English |
| Print length  | 192 pages |
| Publication date  | September 3, 2002 |
| Publisher  | Harper Perennial Modern Classics |

## Images

![The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Perennial Classics) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/719iut1A-TL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Hoffer's keen observations are timeless.
*by S***N on November 17, 2013*

This a a great book, highly relevant these days, a classic that everyone should read. History reveals man's shocking capacity for mass madness and insane cruelty. What is the good, the purpose of pain, suffering, decay and so much abject brutality? One answer is simply that in a polarity universe the one extreme of purity and goodness cannot exist without the other extreme, meaning contamination and evil. In the temporal hologram, everything rots. It is simple physics, or rather metaphysics. A more western oriented explanation of the purpose for such brutal and destructive energies is offered by the plain speaking, down-to-earth American philosopher Eric Hoffer in his classic astute and insightful book, `The True Believer, Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements' [1951]: "The discarded and rejected [of any society] are often the raw material of a nation's future. The stone builders reject becomes the cornerstone of a new world. A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, decent, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come. It was not the irony of history that the undesired in the countries of Europe should have crossed an ocean to build a new world on the [North American] continent. Only they could do it." From this pragmatic assessment we may approach the idea that those we consider to be the dregs of society, the losers, and the various forms of eroding contamination, chemical or ideological -- are in fact the seed store of new forms. Bacteria and viruses, which destroy weakened living cells, have been with us forever. In a cyclical universe, there must be energies that decay, dissolve, and destroy. Often these are hidden beyond our sight, decomposing matter under rocks, in putrid slime yucky-goo rubbish, or silently lurking inside our human bodies. Sometimes they are found in the malcontent, the alienated, misfits who in blaming others for their "spoiled lives" [Hoffer's words] overthrow the existing order. Hoffer counts political and religious fanatics such as Hitler and Lenin among these `true believers' who throughout history have murdered thousands in the name of truth. Eric Hoffer worked on the San Francisco docks as a stevedore in the 1940s. He was self-educated and his experiences in the realm of physical labour combined with a lack of ivory tower intellectual conditioning, which so is often removed from any real life, and therefore produced an extraordinary view of the human condition. I first read `The True Believer' back in Texas high school, perhaps 1962, and I admit that I did not and could not have understood it in those days -- but even in my tender green naive teens, I realized that there was something deeply profoundly true in this book. Because of the recent rumours of revolution, I remembered and thus reread this classic, which was reissued in 2010. Hoffer makes it unequivocally clear that what motivates the True Believer into fanaticism is his or her own lack. They are as he says the disaffected, the poor, the unemployed, the misfits, outcasts, minorities, adolescent youth, the ambitious, the obsessed, the impotent in mind or body, the inordinately selfish, the bored and sinners. "...they are wholly without reverence toward the present. They see their lives and the present as spoiled beyond remedy and they are ready to waste and wreck both: hence their recklessness and their will to chaos and anarchy...Thus they are among the early recruits of revolutions, mass migrations, and of religious, racial and chauvinist movements, and they imprint their mark upon these upheavals and movements which shape a nations character and history." Hoffer's keen observations are brilliant, timeless, and yet more relevant than ever.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Fruit of the Disaffected
*by C***R on August 19, 2025*

This book likely reached its zenith of popularity 6 decades ago in the midst of the tumultuous 1960’s. Since then its profile as an essential must read has quietly diminished for a whole host of reasons, not least of which is the bare fact that reading itself has also quietly lost its place in the age of smart phones and computers. Now in the middle of the 3rd decade of the 21st century those still committed to reading important books may want to order this classic work. Why? Because what Hoffer analyzes in this piece is the nature of that individual who finds him or herself irretrievably abandoned to a cause whose pull is so beyond resisting that any personal life goal, personal commitment or personal relationship is tossed aside in rapturous self-surrender to a cause. This individual is the Radical- The True Believer. Radicals are a type and they emerge into and man Mass Movements during what Hoffer describes as the dynamic “Active Phase”. To understand the Radical Hoffer illuminates the psychological fear engendered in the infamous dictum by Jean Paul Sartre in his work Being and Nothingness that states “Man is condemned to be Free”. The weight of responsibility to navigate the manifold options and opportunities of total freedom with the corresponding risk of naked, atomistic failure is the driver to escape the responsibility of Freedom. The Radical, according to Hoffer, is one who has had a full taste of Freedom. His or her experience of such freedom was one of failure. Failure both objectively by the standards of the present societal order and subjectively by his or her own personal standards. With failure comes frustration. The radical is, according to Hoffer, first and foremost a frustrated soul. The Radical is looking for an escape. Where does the Radical escape to? Hoffer systematically argues that the only place of refuge from individual freedom and the corresponding risk of personal failure is within the group or the collective. Mass Movements are made up of a group or some form of a collective. Inside a Mass Movement the Radical garners shared anonymity within and with other members of the group. Hoffer’s thesis states that Mass Movements are revolutionary by nature. Mass Movements seek their own version of the promised land where all will be made right. In the Mass Movement the Radical finds his life tied to and imbued with a transcendent purpose. He or she has located within the Mass Movement self-worth that was otherwise unattainable after failing to become an independent self-directed and successful member of the larger society. In this penetrating work the author delineates an entire complex constellation of factors, various conditions and role players (such as the men of words and the men of action) that are essential elements of the Mass Movement. Hoffer provides plenty of historical examples of each found throughout the centuries. Example in case: Hoffer’s profile of the “frustrated” Radical roughly fits the Puritan who arrived on the shore of North America in and around 1630. Puritans challenged the established Church of England, which according to the Puritans maintained too many elements of the Catholic Church and needed to be purified. Seeking to fully express their faith without interference they risked life and limb to cross an ocean after which they faced the daunting task of creating a colony out of what was then wilderness. This was consistent with one of Hoffer’s identified societal reliefs for safely processing an internal mass movement – the relief is simply migration of the group or collective out of the larger society and into a foreign land. In the end, his book may have personal value if you know someone drawn to or you find yourself drawn to the siren song of some political, religious or other mass movement. This book may be the tool to keep you tied to the mast of your own personal life course while others jettison all restraint and throw themselves headlong into the throes of a Mass Movement where many find their fate cast upon the rocks.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review
*by T***S on February 2, 2016*

Absolutely fascinating and true, Hoffer explains humanity, psychology, and sociology with deft phrases and punchy conclusions. It did nothing short of changing how I view movements and social change

## Frequently Bought Together

- The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Perennial Classics)
- The Ordeal of Change
- The Passionate State of Mind: And Other Aphorisms

---

## Why Shop on Desertcart?

- 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016
- 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories
- 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price
- 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members)
- 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection
- ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews

**Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.fi/products/7694918-the-true-believer-thoughts-on-the-nature-of-mass-movements](https://www.desertcart.fi/products/7694918-the-true-believer-thoughts-on-the-nature-of-mass-movements)

---

*Product available on Desertcart Finland*
*Store origin: FI*
*Last updated: 2026-02-05*