Summary Of The True Believer By Eric Hoffer

The driving force of mass movements relies on a variety of factors and the motivations that each of the participants within them represent. Within Eric Hoffer’s book titled: The True Believer, he explores the question pertaining to what drives the minds of participants within mass movements and the reasoning for their actions. The novel explores the many historic examples ranging from the various movements of the following of Jesus Christ, to that of Hitler’s persecution of the Jews within the Nazi movement. Although the novel explores the mass movements of the past, Hoffer glances beneath the surface to better understand what essentially drives such movements and how motivations within them can still exist today. The True Believer gives it’s
It is a book that draws its strengths because is not limited to the context of its time as it develops its thought on the minds of the participants involved with mass movements and the various factors that consist within them. Effectively summed up, the New York Times describes the book effectively: “The True Believer glitters with icy wit… bristles with deadly parallels…. It is a harsh and potent mental tonic” (Hoffer 2010, Cover). Eric Hoffer’s novel does not provoke a mass movement within it’s readers, but it certainly ignites a sort of movement as it is an act of defiance to the negative movements of Hoffer’s time, and to the ones readers associate with their present. “All of them started out by defying and overthrowing a long-established authority. The more clear-cut this initial act of defiance and the more vivid its memory in the minds of the people, the more likely is the emergence of individual liberty” (Hoffer 2010: 161). The True Believer is certainly a book that is a worthy read, and certainly lives up to the many praises it has received from its diverse group of readers who each may identify as: “The True