"The True Believer was originally published by Harper & Brothers in 1951. First Perennial Library edition published in 1966 by Harper & Row, Publishers."--Title page verso

Includes bibliographical references (pages 152-160)

I: The appeal of mass movements -- The desire for change -- The desire for substitutes -- The interchangeability of mass movements -- II: The potential converts -- The role of the undesirables in human affairs -- The poor -- The new poor -- The abjectly poor -- The free poor -- The creative poor -- The unified poor -- Misfits -- The inordinately selfish -- The ambitious facing unlimited opportunities -- Minorities -- The bored -- The sinners -- III: United action and self-sacrifice -- Preface -- Factors promoting self-sacrifice -- Identification with a collective whole make-believe -- Deprecation of the present -- "Things which are not"Doctrine -- Fanaticism -- Mass movements and armies -- Unifying agents -- Hatred -- Imitation -- Persuasion and coercion -- Leadership -- Action -- Suspicion -- The effects of unification -- IV: Beginning and end -- Men or words -- The fanatics -- The practical men of action -- Good and bad mass movements -- The unattractiveness and sterility of the active phase -- Some factors which determine the length of the active phase -- Useful mass movements