The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

by Eric Hoffer

Published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics

Published January 29, 2010 (Perennial Classic ed. 2002)
192 pages • find on Amazon: Hardback • Paperback

Review by Billy Glover

Submitted April 18, 2014

I have just found an old copy of the book The True Believer, by Eric Hoffer and am glancing at it.

What I find interesting is the two ideas of fanatics being outsiders and family making a difference. I wonder if anyone else has read this old book and what they got out of it?

What I am trying to get an understanding of is if the founders/activists in our movement were fanatics.

I do not think so, which seems to not follow this book’s line  reasoning.

It seems to me that our strength, from the start, is that we followed the rules, used the system, and never thought there had to be a revolution to arrive someday at equality.

I know some people had strong ideas and were often combative, but I did not find anyone I knew or heard about as being a fanatic, willing to run out and die for the cause.

I thought Don Slater, and many others, were so sure of their thinking and cause that they just plugged on and expected success to come someday.