The Psychology of Revolution

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Le Bon was one of the great popularizers of theories of the unconscious at a critical time during the formation of new theories of social action. Wilfred Trotter, a famous surgeon of University College Hospital, London, wrote similarly in his famous book Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, just before the beginning of World War I; he has been referred to as 'Le Bon's popularizer in English.' Trotter also introduced Wilfred Bion, who worked for him at the hospital, to Sigmund Freud's work Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse (1921; English translation Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, 1922), which was based quite explicitly on a critique of Le Bon's work. Ultimately both Bion and Ernest Jones became interested in what would later be called group psychology.