Elias Canetti (trans. Carol Stewart) - Crowds and Power (Continuum, 1978).

ISBN: 0826402119 | 495 pages | PDF


First published in 1960, Crowds and Power is recognized as one of the twentieth century's most original works of social psychology.

It is notable for its unusual tone; although wide ranging in its erudition, it is not scholarly or academic in a conventional way. Rather, it reads like a manual written by someone outside the human race explaining to another outsider in concise and highly metaphoric language how people form mobs and manipulate power. It is highly poetic and seething with anger.

Canetti explores the interplay between crowds and power, crowds and human behaviour, crowds and history.  He describes open and closed crowds, invisible crowds, baiting crowds, feast crowds and "double" crowds.  His exploration takes the reader to the rain dances of the Pueblo Indians, to the Muharram Festival of the Shiites, to the finger exercises of monkeys; but at the same time it leads toward a better, if startling, understanding of ourselves and the human condition.

About the Author: Elias Canetti (1905-1994) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981. His writings include a monumental work of social theory, Crowds and Power, and three volumes of memoirs, The Tongue Set Free, The Torch in My Ear, and The Play of the Eyes.


Reviews

"A book of immense distinction in which the fruits of human action en bloc have been wisely tabled and formulated." -- London Times

"One is certainly confronted here with something large and important: an extremely imaginative, original and massively documented theory of the psychology of crowds. . .  A great original work." -- Iris Murdoch

"Critics have compared Crowds and Power to the intellectually revolutionary works of Marx, Freud, and Frazer. . .  Canetti writes more lucidly and readably than those explorers of ideas." -- New York Times