Just Couldn’t Finish Reading: The Crowd – A Study of the Popular Mind by Gustave Le Bon (FP: 1895)

This was billed as ‘one of the most influential works of Social Psychology in history’ and as being instrumental in creating a whole field of study – which, presumably, led to what we now call Sociology. From the 60 pages I managed (out of a total of 139 in my edition) I can see who that was the case. The author makes a determined effort to look at crowds from a scientific viewpoint and to actually understand why they behave in certain ways. As he was essentially creating a field of study the narrative was a bit of a mish-mash of schools of thought – inevitably – including biology, psychology, cultural studies and history (plus a bit of law thrown in for good measure). This is pretty much what I expected.

What I had real trouble with, and a major reason why I couldn’t finish this short book – which I had fully expected to polish off in a few days at least – was the archaic world view that kept getting in the way of the investigation in hand. Most noticeably was the superior attitude to both the white and, generally, European ‘race’. At first I could ignore the swipes at other ‘races’ particular ‘Latins’ but it quickly wore rather thin. Likewise his far from hidden disparagement of women – at first rather ‘amusing’ became quickly less so. In quite quick order my interest and therefore reading speed dropped substantially and after heroic efforts to get 60 pages in just couldn’t face another 80+ ahead of me. That’s a shame really. I’ve read other books from this era that were not anything like as racist nor misogynistic as this. It’s possibly the fact that it was from a French author but probably more likely just a sign of the times. Luckily I had intended buying another book of his on the psychology of revolutions but had yet to do so. Ironically I think I’ve dodged a bullet on that one. Obviously not recommended.