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Author : Le Bon Gustave
Title : The world in revolt A psychological study of our times
Year : 1921

Link download : Le_Bon_Gustave_-_The_world_in_revolt_A_psychological_study_of_our_times.zip

The year 1918 marked a bright and conspicuous date in the annals of our history. After a series of successes which seemed to forecast their eventual triumph, our aggressors suddenly foundered in a cataclysm which at a single blow destroyed the oldest monarchies of Europe. Never did such contradictory and unforeseen events occur within so brief a period. In the age of miracles it would have seemed a thing beyond doubt that the mysterious higher powers had intervened to change the path of destiny. The powers capable, despite all forecasts, of subjugating the most formidable Empire that the world has ever known were mighty indeed, but not mysterious. They belonged to that transcendent domain of psychological forces which, in the course of the centuries, have so often succeeded in dominating material powers, whatever their magnitude. In all the phases of the terrible conflict these moral powers manifested their activity. In countries formerly devoid of military material and without soldiers they called up innumerable legions, armed with ships and guns. Day after day material and visible agencies came into being under the influence of the invisible powers, until the moment when the former became capable of surmounting obstacles regarded as invincible. Psychological forces, in which moral activities are included, do not control the fate of battles merely. They rule over all the departments of national life and determine the destinies of peoples. Conceived in the same spirit as our previous volumes on the war, this new volume will examine, from the psychological point of view, some of the problems to which the great conflict has given rise. We shall see once again that the majority of political, mihtary, economic or social questions belong to the province of psychology. This science, so uncertain in the past, when it confined itself to the domain of pure theory, has become capable of throwing light upon the most difficult problems. Statesmen, generals and manufacturers even invoke its services daily. That so many problems, past and present, are of a psychological order is due to the fact that the motive forces of national life, apart from biological needs, are to be found in the national conceptions of things. Now these conceptions are derived from passions and feelings, which have always been the great motive forces of humanity from the very beginnings of its history. New civilizations have been born, and the conflicts which of old were fought upon land or at sea are now carried on underground, under the surface of the seas and in the air ; but while the understanding has evolved in the course of the ages, our feelings are identical with those which inspired our remotest ancestors. Although the nature of our feelings has not altered, the aggregations which they are capable of forming, the complex of which constitutes character, have always varied from race to race, which explains why the destinies of the different countries have been so different. It was always dangerous to disregard these differences. The Germans lost the war because they did not understand them. Their blunders in respect of national psychology armed against them nations which asked no better than to remain neutral. The Allies, too, have made blunders of the same nature, especially since the peace. These will be examined in the pages of this book. ...