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Men on Horseback: The Power of Charisma in the Age of Revolution
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62
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
52/100Critics
44/100Scholars
90/100Author:
David A. Bell
Publisher:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date:
July 28, 2020
An examination of why the age of democratic revolutions was also a time of hero worship and strongmen.
What The Reviewers Say
... [a] masterful account of charisma in modern history.
One of Bell’s insights is to see the man on horseback as a genre. His engaging survey of the four major early-modern revolutions traces the way their messianic leaders learned from and imitated one another, as did the chroniclers who gilded their names.
... insightful.
It’s impossible to read Men on Horseback without the post-2016 world intruding upon your consciousness. Bell knows this and offers twin conclusions. First, he reminds us, charisma is as old as modern politics itself. It has been there from the start, powering dictatorial impulses as often as democratic ones.
