Abstract

This impressive and closely researched intellectual biography transcends the usual categories in which Le Bon has often been placed: a precursor of fascism and the originator of prescriptions for Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, or Stalin in their manipulation of the masses. Benoit Marpeau's concern is to present a valid historiographic account that involves both a closer and a wider view of Le Bon's prolific work. In recounting his intellectual journey , the author devotes no space to discussing Le Bon's personality. However, Le Bon's dominant characteristics become clear: he was elitist, conservative, and anti‐Semitic; he valued the individual over the collective. Marpeau shows his sense of superiority to have been fragile, for his medical qualifications, at the start of his career, were minimal. He was a self‐styled “docteur.” His need to excel fueled his ambition to write on a variety of areas—scientific, psychological, sociological, educational—and on contemporary affairs.One of the major features of this biography is the importance that Marpeau attaches to the system of relationships in which Le Bon was involved. These centered on two regular social/intellectual reunions in which he was a key figure and organizer. Through these social events he was able to make useful connections that would advance both his social and intellectual status. Nevertheless, Le Bon remained outside the university domain; nor was his scientific work formally recognized by the Academy of Sciences; and he was overlooked for the Nobel Prize for science in 1903. If Le Bon was in some sense “marginal”—and Marpeau questions this description—he nevertheless exerted influence when he founded and became the director of the important Collection of the “Bibliothèque de Philosophie” published by Flammarion. Marpeau shows how this editorial post enhanced his standing and helped to disseminate his views, for Le Bon had the power to decide what could be published.The author also shows how Le Bon was a man of his times, for he reflected the views and interests held both by intellectuals and by a wider public. The idea of degeneration and the decadence of France was a particular concern. The scientific theory of recapitulation informed the hierarchy of races and defined both children and women, together with “primitive” races, as inferior. Le Bon endorsed these ideas, which were supported by craniometric studies.In his analysis of the most well‐known work, The Psychology of Crowds , Marpeau agrees in general with the thesis of Robert Nye , to which he makes some additions and qualifications. Marpeau does not see Le Bon as the originator of the methods of crowd manipulation, nor of the “offensive system” that the French military leaders later adopted.This biography is truly an intellectual one, constructed on historicist principles: hence the placing of Le Bon's work in its appropriate scientific and relational contexts. At various points Marpeau justifies a method that entails an examination in great detail of Le Bon's correspondence and the composition of his entourage at various stages of his life. However, this strategy is somewhat overstretched and produces accounts of undue length.This is not a book for readers interested in Le Bon's work or character. This is, rather, a biography for historians particularly interested in Marpeau's method and in historiographic issues. As such, it can serve as an example of commitment and thoroughness; it also offers an opportunity for the critical mind to assess the value of the various contributions that might explain an intellectual journey