A highly provocative, bestselling analysis of the fanatic -- the individual compelled to join a cause, any cause -- and a penetrating study of mass movements from early Christianity to modern nationalism and Communism. Reporting on the true believer, Air Hoffer examines with Machiavellian detachment mass movements, from Christianity in its infancy to the national uprisings of our own day. His analysis of the psychology of mass movements is a brilliant and frightening study of the mind of the fanatic, the individual whose, personal failings lead him to join a cause, any cause, even at peril to life -- or yours.