Psychology of Peoples

Summary

After receiving a doctorate in medicine, Le Bon travelled in Europe, North Africa, and Asia and wrote several books on anthropology and archaeology. His interests later shifted to natural science and social psychology. Gustave Le Bon is best known for his seminal work „Crowd Psychology“ where he describes the psychological effects in various group settings. In „Psychology of Peoples“ written in 1894 he utilizes his anthropological knowledge and cross-references it with social psychology. He developed a view that history is the product of racial or national character, with emotion, not intelligence, being the dominant force in social evolution. He attributed true progress to the work of an intellectual elite. As a product of its time and conditions, the content of this book is partly highly controversial and should be seen as an intellectual challenge. Some arguments should be outright rejected, cause they haven’t stood the test of time. To his credit, already back in 1894 Le Bon foresaw the dangers of the application of socialism, well before the Russian Revolution and Mao’s takeover of China.