The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) published twelve books between 1951 and 1983. The True Believer was the first and most celebrated of these books. President Dwight Eisenhower cited The True Believer during a press conference and recommended it to friends. The True Believer received favorable reviews from such intellectual luminaries as American historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and British philosopher Bertrand Russell. In short, The True Believer catapulted Hoffer to international prominence as an author. In February 1983, only three months before Hoffer’s death, President Ronald Reagan conferred on Hoffer the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Hoffer’s literary accomplishments must be understood in the context of his unique background. Beginning in the 1940s, Hoffer worked as a longshoreman on the San Francisco docks. He devoted his spare time to writing. By then, he was in his forties. There is no evidence that he acquired a formal education, let alone academic credentials. Hoffer claimed that he was born in the Bronx and that his parents died when he was very young, but no one has ever uncovered a record of Hoffer or his parents in the United States prior to 1940. Hoffer is said to have spoken not with a Bronx accent but with a Bavarian one.