Rating: 
Summary: Amazing insight
Review: This book is absolutely incredible.You will not believe that it was written 50 years ago in the aftermath of the holocaust. It seems to have been written yesterday to explain today's islamist extremists or many of today's other sects. Not only does the author explain why suicide bombers are not a suprising phenomenon, he makes you wonder (bone chillingly) why there are not actually MORE of them. My only regret is that the author does not address the "middle ground"; ie, you are either an extremist or you are a self-contented egoist. What about people who are politically active (but not revolutionaries), volunteers for non-profit organizations, etc.... This area could benefit from some more development. But the purpose of the book is to explain how, why, when people get involved in extremist groups to the point of sacrificing their own lives & others. It does an admirable job at clarifying this.
Rating:
Summary: The best explaination of the puzzle of mass movements
Review: It's shocking that anyone could study an event such as the Holocost, or the bone crushing history of Communism, or the roots of todays terrorism, and not read The True Believer. I can't believe I wasn't exposed to this book in high school or college. Though longer and not as eloquent as "The Prince" this book reminds me of it in its appeal to common sense and a realistic view of human psychology. The book is also refreshing in its blunt explanations and language. I often found myself thinking "I can't believe he just wrote that" one moment and then thinking "yeah, he's right" the next.
If you want a cold and unsympathetic explanation for how mass movements are formed, and who joins them, this is the book for you. Next time the news reports on the "surprising" profile of a terrorist, or suicide bomber, you won't be surprised at all.
Rating:
Summary: Best book I've ever read!
Review: Hoffer was a genius and clearly ahead of his own time. This book gives more insight into human nature than any other book I have ever read, probably more so than any other book out there. None of what Hoffer writes is easy to understand -- each paragraph takes either a few hours or a few days to understand, if you can stomach them, since they're so deep. I had to read it at least three times to digest it all, and I am sure I understand it all very well. Anyway, get this book if you're into psychology or sociology because that's basically what it's about, both. And have fun!
Rating: 
Summary: But For Which Age Group?
Review: I wish I had read "The True Believer" while I was in college instead all the junk that was required back then. TB is full of "useful" aphorisms about mass political movements that any self- respecting political science major should appreciate: For example, "to wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. To treat our enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred". Or (from Hitler) "If the Jew did not exist, we should have had to invent him. We must have a tangible enemy, not merely an abstract one". How about: "an army is an instrument of preserving the present. Mass movements serve to destroy the present'. Or perhaps "it is easier to hate an enemy with some good in him than one who is all bad". I could provide more examples; I'm sure the picture is clear. TB is abidingly cynical, yet deadly accurate. There are references to Hitler and Stalin that are chillingly on target. The challenge is to relate the ideas herein to real life or to current world crises. Will we now understand Arafat or the Taliban better than before? This reviewer is not sure how one is to do that. Given the textbook quality of TB, I have reservations as to how a non school age reader, either too old or too young, would handle its' academic nature. For those age groups, this is a 5 star work; for the rest of us a lower rating is more appropriate. Those browsing amazon should be aware that TB first appeared in 1951 (!), with numerous reprintings. Hoffer has plainly authored a serious work. Who would most enjoy it is the question.
Rating:
Summary: Subject matter worth reading but viewpoint seems biased
Review: Mostly, his arguments are valid, but i think his
approach is sometimes biased and wrong. In some cases
he is simply looking at the outcome and trying to
cement some of his own beliefs as causation. Example:
"The frustrated have a propensity for unified action."
The movements he is describing are en masse rather
than unified. He also fails to take into account that
the movements he is.. well, 'attacking' are often not
lead by people of the same mentaility as those which
follow. In this case too, unified and en masse are
different, like together and same direction. Unified
implies some sort of concious awareness of effert. The
intellectual movements he describes are not en masse
per se. There is a lack of them as well, he cites few
in defense the the True Believer is found in both rich
and poor alike. I think he includes it to gloss over
his own bias, so as to make the work more paletable
without offending anyone.
There are a few logical fallacies, but the points are
still worth noting. I wish i had taken notes, i could
be specific here. As it is i am only reflecting what i
remember of my own thoughts as i was reading.
He does make use of some modern [pop?] psychology. He
attempts to show the complexity of mass/movement
behavior in a rational manner. What he really ought to
do is trreat the movements themselves as memes, and
examine less the people and more the ideal of the
movement as a monster of its own.
The book certainly sheds light on what i fondly refer
to as "The tyranny of the mundane". God, I am such an
elitist pig.
Rating:
Summary: one of the most important books of the 20th century
Review: Have you ever wondered why it is that people persist in believing in something even after all credibility has evaporated in believing that something?How is it that there are people who still adhere to Fascist,Marxist,Fundamentalist religion, and any number of ideologies and substitute religions?In a concise and dead-on-the-bullseye analysis,Eric Hoffer exposed the fanatic and the underpinnings of the psyche and life situations that compels even highly intelligent people to throw all rationality to the wind.The gross excesses of fundamentalist religion,Fascism,Marxism may have passed in their current incarnations,but as surely as man must have meaning in his life and there exists those who cannot provide their own meaning,the movements of identity politics,utopianism and authoritarianism will come upon us again and again.Hoffer didn't sugarcoat or give any pat answers to this problem.What he did do was give us this gift of a book,and that indeed was a great deed.
Rating:
Summary: When you're right, you're right . . . 50 years later
Review: I was fortunate enough to hear Eric Hoffer speak in the 1960's,
I was just a little kid but his clarity and personal power made such an impression I still remember him to this day. After 9/11 I started seeing reviews of this book crop up again and I bought it and read it. I am glad I did. In a straightforward style he talks about the minds of fanatics of any stripe and looks for the common elements that you will find in the followers of Jim Jones or Osama Bin Laden. He makes a compelling case that people who feel that their own lives are pointless and they cannot make a difference in the world ally themselves with huge, great causes and subsume their own selves into the great cause. He makes concrete lists of characteristics that you will recognize in people you meet every day, encounter in the letters-to-the editor columns of your newspaper as well as those that have closed themselves off in a cult or mass movement. I found the book said things that several months after reading it I still think of often. I highely suggest that anyone read it.
Rating:
Summary: sociology in a nutshell
Review: The stark layman's approach to the thinking of crowds is almost unmatched. It is beyond sociology, it is philosophy, but it is plainly put. It reads like a digest. The statements are bold but since he's written it, the patterns he talks about have continued or come true for the first time. This man is a visionary.
Rating:
Summary: "The True Believer"
Review: I love this book. It is probably the best one I've ever written.
Please read it. Please. I've been dead now for almost 30 years and I'd love to know that someone is still reading my work. I love you. I really do. Show your love for me by reading this book. I'm telling you, it's one of my best. It really is. I love you all, E.
Rating:
Summary: Evil, Be Thou My Good
Review: Hoffer looks for and finds common themes operating in the minds of various "True Believers" all of whom seem at root, according to Hoffer, to be hating others, even as they hate themselves. Perhaps mainly because they hate themselves, or their families, societies, or blown opportunities. By embracing and extending this hatred, they become tools in the hands of the party organizers (Hitler) or religious fanatics--who assure them it's actually good to be bad. This is why I pick the Paradise Lost reference as the title to this review. The Wall Street Journal carried a review of this by a guy who read it in the 60's, and who saw in it (he now sees) a way to get a handle on developments in the newly lethal world of Islamo-terrorism. Some of the most interesting things in here are the quotes from Hitler and some of his key organizers, on the role assigned to the scapegoats (the Jews). Hoffer interacts with this at the root idea level, which gets beyond the madman-evil characterization of Hitler, and explains his appeal to a demoralized, self-hating Germany. If Germans can fall into this, it's no surprise that technically and educationally less developed societies can, as well. The snake's message in the Garden is, after all, universal. But Hoffer isn't really anti-snake in a religious sense, since he seems to cast his net to trap early Christianity along with Nazi-ism, which makes this book provocative 50 years since it was written.
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