The Psychology of Peoples: Its Influence on Their Evolution: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Psychology of Peoples: Its Influence on Their Evolution, credited to Gustave Le Bon, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Psychology of Peoples: Its Influence on Their Evolution by Gustave Le Bon. Read in English by Oxenhandler "It is barely a century and a half ago that certain philosophers, who, it should be remarked, were very ignorant of the primitive history of man, of the variations of his mental constitution and of the laws of heredity, propounded the idea of the equality of individuals and races... It is in the name of this idea that socialism, which seems destined to enslave before long the majority of Western peoples, pretends to ensure their welfare... The object of this work is to describe the psychological characteristics which constitute the soul of races, and to show how the history of a people and its civilisation are determined by these characteristics... We shall then examine whether the elements composing a civilisation, its arts, its institutions, its beliefs, are not direct manifestations of the soul of races, and whether in consequence, it is not impossible that they should pass from one people to another. We shall conclude by attempting to determine what are the necessities under the influence of which civilisations decay and die out." - extracts from the Introduction. Also, "...The author's central thesis is that chance, environment and institutions play but secondary parts in the history of a people. Character (race) is the important thing. This character - a people's morality and conduct - is determined mainly by its ancestry. After character, ideas, and particularly religious ideas are the most important factors in the evolution of a civilisation. The possession of a small number of highly developed minds is what differentiates a superior from an inferior race." - Mind a Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy. Edited by G. F. Stout. The Aberdeen University Press. Vol. VIII.-1899. p. 122-23. - Summary by Oxenhandler

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Psychology of Peoples: Its Influence on Their Evolution
• Author credits: Gustave Le Bon
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 17
• Listed recording duration: 5:06:51

Catalogue topics

• religion
• education
• socialism
• democracy
• race
• character
• communism
• Fascism

Track guide

1. 00 - Introduction — 11:22
2. 01 - The Soul of Races — 18:12
3. 02 - The Limits of the Variability of the Character of Races — 10:23
4. 03 - The Psychological Hierarchy of Races — 17:51
5. 04 - The Progressive Differentiation of Individuals and Races — 15:29
6. 05 - Formation of the Historical Races — 13:43
7. 06 - The Various Elements of a Civilization Considered as a Manifestation of the Soul of a People — 22:06
8. 07 - How Institutions, Religions and Languages Are Transformed — 24:51
9. 08 - How the Arts Are Transformed — 33:53
10. 09 - How the Soul of Peoples Is Responsible for Their Institutions — 11:42
11. 10 - Application of Preceding Principles to the Comparative Study of the Evolution of the United States of America and of the Spanish-American Republics — 19:51
12. 11 - How the Modification of the Soul of Races Affects the Historical Evolution of Peoples — 16:22
13. 12 - The Role of Ideas in the Life of Peoples — 30:16
14. 13 - The Role of Religious Beliefs in the Evolution of Civilizations — 11:53
15. 14 - The Role of Great Men in the History of Peoples — 12:16
16. 15 - How Civilizations Fade Away and Die Out — 28:11
17. 16 - General Conclusions — 8:29

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