--- title: 'The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind' url: https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/ description: 'The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind by Gustave Le Bon (1896), full text with provenance and rights.' section: FRAME --- ![Illustration: a pre-1914 imperial intelligence-dossier collage of colonial telegraph logs, sepia field photography and empire maps.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-pre1914.jpg) [Library](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/) · Book # The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind ![Title page of The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, T. Fisher Unwin, London](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/thumb.jpg) Title page of the T. Fisher Unwin edition, from a Stanford University Libraries copy digitised by the Internet Archive. Public domain (published 1896); Internet Archive; Stanford University Libraries. Cropped from a scan of the page. [Source](https://archive.org/details/crowdastudypopu01bongoog) At a glance An 1895 study of crowd psychology that later propagandists and public-relations writers drew on. - **Author:** Gustave Le Bon - **Published:** 1896 - **Origin:** France - **Length:** 53,291 words, 14 chapters Full details - **Edition:** The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1896, the English translation (Project Gutenberg's proofread transcription) - **Language:** English (translated from the French of 1895) - **Text source:** [Project Gutenberg, ebook #445](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/445) - **Text basis:** Proofread transcription by Project Gutenberg's Distributed Proofreaders. - **Rights:** The French original (1895) and this English translation (1896) were published more than 95 years ago, so both are in the public domain in the United States. Le Bon died in 1931, so the text is also in the public domain in countries that count the author's life plus 70 years. - **Rights checked:** September 29, 2026 On this page - [Read the text](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/#read) - [Provenance and rights](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/#provenance) - [Where it appears in the archive](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/#cited) - [Related](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/#related) **Content note:** Period generalisations about race, sex and class, presented by the author as science. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) An 1895 book by the French physician and social psychologist Gustave Le Bon, offering a theory of how individuals in crowds lose reasoned judgement and follow leaders, images and repeated assertion. The archive's doctrine page on Bernays discusses the crowd psychology that Bernays drew on, and this is the source in full. Its claims about race, sex and class reflect the assumptions of its period; the text is shown as it was published. ## Read the text - [Introduction: The Era of Crowds](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/01-introduction-the-era-of-crowds/) 2,603 words - Book I: The Mind of Crowds - [Book I, Chapter 1: General Characteristics of Crowds — Psychological Law of Their Mental Unity](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/02-book-i-chapter-1-general-characteristics-of-crow/) 3,115 words - [Book I, Chapter 2: The Sentiments and Morality of Crowds](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/03-book-i-chapter-2-the-sentiments-and-morality-of/) 6,951 words - [Book I, Chapter 3: The Ideas, Reasoning Power, and Imagination of Crowds](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/04-book-i-chapter-3-the-ideas-reasoning-power-and-i/) 3,227 words - [Book I, Chapter 4: A Religious Shape Assumed by All the Convictions of Crowds](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/05-book-i-chapter-4-a-religious-shape-assumed-by-al/) 1,780 words - Book II: The Opinions and Beliefs of Crowds - [Book II, Chapter 1: Remote Factors of the Opinions and Beliefs of Crowds](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/06-book-ii-chapter-1-remote-factors-of-the-opinions/) 6,342 words - [Book II, Chapter 2: The Immediate Factors of the Opinions of Crowds](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/07-book-ii-chapter-2-the-immediate-factors-of-the-o/) 4,412 words - [Book II, Chapter 3: The Leaders of Crowds and Their Means of Persuasion](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/08-book-ii-chapter-3-the-leaders-of-crowds-and-thei/) 6,938 words - [Book II, Chapter 4: Limitations of the Variability of the Beliefs and Opinions of Crowds](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/09-book-ii-chapter-4-limitations-of-the-variability/) 3,800 words - Book III: The Classification and Description of the Different Kinds of Crowds - [Book III, Chapter 1: The Classification of Crowds](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/10-book-iii-chapter-1-the-classification-of-crowds/) 1,133 words - [Book III, Chapter 2: Crowds Termed Criminal Crowds](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/11-book-iii-chapter-2-crowds-termed-criminal-crowds/) 1,437 words - [Book III, Chapter 3: Criminal Juries](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/12-book-iii-chapter-3-criminal-juries/) 2,510 words - [Book III, Chapter 4: Electoral Crowds](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/13-book-iii-chapter-4-electoral-crowds/) 3,039 words - [Book III, Chapter 5: Parliamentary Assemblies](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/14-book-iii-chapter-5-parliamentary-assemblies/) 6,004 words [Download as plain text](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lebon-the-crowd/lebon-the-crowd.txt) 53,291 words, with the provenance header above the text ## Provenance and rights - **Edition:** The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1896, the English translation (Project Gutenberg's proofread transcription) - **Text source:** [Project Gutenberg, ebook #445](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/445) - **Text basis:** Proofread transcription by Project Gutenberg's Distributed Proofreaders. - **Rights:** The French original (1895) and this English translation (1896) were published more than 95 years ago, so both are in the public domain in the United States. Le Bon died in 1931, so the text is also in the public domain in countries that count the author's life plus 70 years. Checked September 29, 2026. - **Changes made:** Line wraps rejoined and headings set in title case; the Project Gutenberg licence header and footer removed. Wording, spelling and punctuation are the source's own. Chapter titles that wrapped over two lines are joined; the printed hyphen-dash pairs in titles are set as dashes. - **Source file checksum:** `342ce2be9c9cc88c…` (SHA-256 of the download this text was made from) ## Where it appears in the archive - [Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/bernays-propaganda/) ## Related - [Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (1922)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/lippmann-public-opinion/)