The True Believer is a visionary and highly provocative look into the mind of the fanatic and a penetrating study of how an individual becomes one. Written by Eric Hoffer, a stevedore on the San Francisco docks in the 1940s, this book has remained completely relevant and essential for understanding the world today. Hoffer wrote philosophical treatises in his spare time while living in the railroad yards.

This is the first and most famous of his books, which became a bestseller when President Eisenhower cited it during one of the earliest television press conferences.