The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

I am honestly surprised that this book has such a high rating. While it is true that it is clearly labeled as an opinion piece; which is completely fine in and of itself, Hoffer did not provide much in the way of empirical evidence for his statements. They come across as simple observations from an armchair expert, and we are meant to believe the words of someone who has had no apparent formal education (Eric Hoffer was a simple dockworker in the 40's), and little in the way of personal experience aside from a status of being an American citizen. In my opinion, I disagree with many of his stances on mass movements, and many others are simply outdated. I find it rather humorous that I possess just as many expert qualifications as the author on these subjects, (that is to say, none at all) and yet I have not written myself a book proclaiming facts on subjects I have no authority in. Perhaps I should?

This has almost no citations. Maybe that flew back in the 50s but any person could make bunch of broad generalizations and spin them into a book. There are enough rattled off ideas that this becomes a sort cherry pick a quote for your needs. I think no book of this kind had been written at the time of publication, hence its enduring popularity. I'd like to revisit the topic with better scholarship.

I found myself continually wondering why the book had nothing to say about the current social justice movement; it was so spot on about everything, I figured it had to have been written recently. If you consider 60 years ago to be “recent”, I guess that's true.

This book doesn't have a lot of good things to say about human nature, nor is it very happy, but I found myself completely enthralled. By far the best book I've read in the last few years.