Table of Contents

List of figures, maps and tables; Preface; Introduction; 1. The revolutionary mob: Taine, psychohistory and regression; 2. The criminal crowd: Sighele, criminology and semi-responsibility; 3. A missing link: Fournial, anthropology and the priority debate; 4. The era of the crowd: LeBon, psychopathology and suggestion; 5. The era of the public: Tarde, social psychology and interaction; Summary and conclusions; Bibliography; Index.

Promotional Information

An exploration of the history of the emergence of crowd psychology in the late nineteeenth century.

Reviews

'Van Ginneken has written the most thorough study available in any language of the origins and character of European 'crowd psychology' in the last three decades of the 19th century … This is a concise, lively, thoughtful, accurate, and endlessly informative history …' Contemporary Psychology

'This is a work of careful and detailed schoarship that deserves both scholarly and general readers … is now certainly the most complete and balanced account of the early history of crowd psychology available.' Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences

'Crowds, Psychology and Politics is an informative and useful addition to the literature, and throws new light on several of the less well-known theorists and on why this branch of social science should have crystallized in the last years of the nineteenth century.' The Times Literary Supplement

'This is an ambitious project, and one that is braodly successful … In all these fields, Van Ginneken shows an easy mastery both of the literature and of previously unexploited primary sources.' Nature