... [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.

Bell, a distinguished historian of France, is alive to the tension between revolutionary ideologies of freedom, democracy, equality and fraternity and the violence and repression that can be unleashed in their name.

... thorough analysis.

... fluid and thought-provoking.

Bell concludes that the rise of autocrats today indicates that charismatic leaders, especially those who maintain that achieving national glory trumps boring institutions like laws, are finding a receptive audience.