First published in 1989, this persuasive and original by John McClelland examines the importance of the idea of 'the crowd' in the writings of philosophers, historians and politicians from the classical era to the twentieth century. The book examines histories of political thought and their justifications for forms of rule, highlighting the persistent and profoundly anti-democratic bias in political and social thought, analysing in particular the writings of Machiavelli, Montesquieu, Hitler, Gibbon, Carlysle, Michelet, Taine and Freud.

First published in 1989, this persuasive and original work by John McClelland examines the importance of the idea of 'the crowd' in the writings of philosophers, historians and politicians from the classical era to the twentieth century.

The book examines histories of political thought and their justifications for forms of rule, highlighting the persistent and profoundly anti-democratic bias in political and social thought, analysing in particular the writings of Machiavelli, Montesquieu, Hitler, Gibbon, Carlysle, Michelet, Taine and Freud.

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Contents:
List of Biographies. Foreword.
Part I: The Greeks 1. Ancient Greek Political Thought 2. Socrates and Plato 3. The Guardians of the State and Justice 4. Aristotle and the Science of Politics
Part II: Romans and Roman Catholics: From Polis to Cosmopolis 5. Christian Cosmopolitan: St. Augustine's City of God 6. Christendom and its Law: St.Thomas Aquinas
Part III: Romans and Humanists: the Reinvention of Sovereignty 7. The Re-invention of Sovereignty: Marsilius of Padua 8. Machiavelli: The Prince and The Virtuous Republic
Part IV: The Theory of the Social Contract 9. The Rise and Extraordinary Persistence of the Theory of the Social Contract 10. Social Contract I: The Hobbesian Version 11. Social Contract II: The Lockean Version 12. Social Contract III: The Rousseauist Version
Part V: Enlightenment and the Development of the Modern State 13. The Modernity of the Modern State 14. The Politics of Enlightenment 15. Enlightenment and Government through Law: Montesquieu 16. The American Enlightenment: Jefferson, Crevecoeur, Hamilton, Jay, Madison, Paine 17. The Limitations of Enlightenment: Hume and Burk
Part VI: The Rise of Liberalism 18. Liberalism Comes of Age: Bentham and John Stuart Mill 19. Liberalism in Maturity and Decline: Spencer, Sumner and Green Part VII: Reactions to Liberalism 1 20. Hegel: The State and Dialectic 21. Hegel and the Hegelian Context of Marxism
Part VII: Reactions to Liberalism 2 22. Socialism Marxism and Other Socialisms 23. Social Democracy: Bernstein and Crosland 24. The Synthesis of Jacobinism and Marxism - Bolshevism: Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin
Part VIII: Reactions to Liberalism 3 25. Irrationalism and Anti-Rationalism 26. The Moral Exclusiveness of Nationalism: Herder 27. The Elitist Critique of Democracy: Pareto and Michels 28. Liberalism's Special Enemies: The Crowd and its Theorists 29. The Leader and his Crowd: Sigmund Freud's Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921) 30. Fascism, or Being Revolutionary without Being Marxist 31. Conservatism: Maurras and Oakeshott 32. Thinking about Thinking, and the Lapse into Discourses
Notes. Index.