Crowd Theory as a Psychology of the Leader and the Led: Governing the Irrational Masses

Gives an overview of the intellectual context of crowd psychology; examines the social-psychological frameworks applied first by the French and Italian and then by the British crowd theorists to the study of collective behavior; summarizes their biologically derived views of innate human inequality; analyzes crowd psychology as an illiberal psychology of mass politics and elitist psychology of leadership and social control. Makes a valuable contribution to the intellectual history of the behavioral sciences.