"A stevedore on the San Francisco docks in the 1940s, Eric Hoffer wrote philosophical treatises in his spare time while living in the railroad yards. The True Believer--the first and most famous of his books--was made into a bestseller when President Eisenhower cited it during one of the earliest television press conferences. Called a "brilliant and original inquiry" and "a genuine contribution to our social thought" by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. , this landmark in the field of social psychology is completely relevant and essential for understanding the world today as it delivers a visionary, highly provocative look into the mind of the fanatic and a penetrating study of how an individual becomes one. "--Amazon. com.