Crowds, psychology and politics, 1871-1899. English (Cambridge University Press, 269 p., with hist. illustr., notes, lit., index. ISBN 0-521-40418-5), and Italian (below).
Belated 1989 doctoral dissertation, accepted ‘with distinction’. Inquiry into the late 19th century origins of political and mass psychology (as well as elite sociology), based on archival research throughout France and Italy.
Separate chapters deal with the specific contributions of Hippolyte Taine, Scipio Sighele, Henri Fournial, Gustave Le Bon and Gabriel Tarde.
Including how social backgrounds inspired their reflections: the Italian Risorgimento, the re-evaluation of the French Revolution, the Paris Commune, the rise of anti-parliamentarianism and the workers’ movement, the Dreyfus affair.
As well as how their immediate intellectual backgrounds did: the earliest stirrings of psycho-history, of anthropology and criminology, of psychodynamics, social psychology and sociology.
Italian translation: Folle, psychologia e politica (Roma: Pieraldo 1991, 243 p., notes, lit., index. ISBN 88-85386-00-8).
Belated sequel on Trotter, Freud, Reich and the Frankfurt School: 2007 Mass movements.
Version imprimable 