Abstract
This paper analyzes the reception and appropriation of Gustave Le Bon’s Psychologie des foules (English title: The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind) in China from the early twentieth century to this day. Written in 1895 and intended as a guide for statesmen on how to deal with crowds during an age in which their rising political influence was viewed with fear by many, the work enjoyed several waves of popularity in China––most recently in the early twenty-first century––and was used by different groups for very different purposes. The paper will focus on the different translations, the routes and intermediaries through which the work came to China, and the purposes for which it was appropriated. It finds that political elites have tried to use ideas found in Psychologie des foules both to mobilize and to contain the Chinese people. Moreover, the findings of the study suggest that when studying cultural flows from one context to another, the definition of culture should be explicitly expanded to accommodate flows across time and space as well as between different ideologies, academic disciplines, or any other parameter that erects borders between different groups of people.
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- 1.
Cf. Jaap van Ginneken, “The Mob in Influential Novels,” in Ginneken, Mass Movements in Darwinist, Freudian and Marxist Perspective: Trotter, Freud and Reich on War, Revolution and Reaction, 1900–1933 (Appeldoorn and Antwerpen: Het Spinhuis, 2007), 7–29.
- 2.
Gustave Le Bon, La psychologie des foules [The psychology of mobs] (Paris: Alcan, 1895) and Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (New York: Macmillan, 1896).
- 3.
While studies touching on Le Bon’s reception, both in ‘Western’ countries and elsewhere, do exist, they are not commensurate with the status his books used to have and the number of well-known people whose political imaginaries he helped to shape. Also cf. Alice Widener, Gustave Le Bon, the Man and his Works (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1977), 13.
- 4.
A list of abbreviations can be found at the beginning of this paper.
- 5.
Border crossing is a metaphor from border and migration studies that has been extended and applied to the negotiating of cultural and social identities, mostly in the field of cultural anthropology. One of the earliest works to use the metaphor is Renato Rosaldo, Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989).
- 6.
For an analogy between languages in the narrow sense and discourses in their ability to structure how people perceive the world, see also Frank Fischer, Reframing Public Policies: Discursive Politics and Deliberative Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 42.
- 7.
While in China today, the West is often delineated according to economic criteria and is a synonym for the ‘developed’ countries––including Japan––in this paper it is used to denote Western Europe and North America, but not Japan, in the meaning common in Republican China.
- 8.
For example, La civilisation des Arabes (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1884), Les civilisations de l’Inde (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1887).
- 9.
Most importantly in Les lois psychologiques de l’évolution des peuples (Paris: Alcan, 1894).
- 10.
For example, in L'évolution de la matière (Paris: Flammarion, 1905).
- 11.
Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (Mineola: Dover Publications, 2002), 10.
- 12.
Tarde (1843–1904) was a French criminologist. His most important works on ‘crowd psychology’ are Les lois de l’imitation (1890) and L’opinion et la foule (1901). Sighele (1868–1913) was an Italian criminologist. His main work on crowd psychology was La Folla delinquente from 1892, translated and published in French in the same year, i.e. before Le Bon wrote Crowd.
- 13.
He was involved in numerous plagiarism battles, primarily with Sighele, but also with Tarde and others. Accusations of plagiarism were common among people writing on ‘crowd psychology’ at the time. See Jaap van Ginneken, “The 1895 Debate on the Origins of Crowd Psychology,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 21, no. 4 (1985): 375–382.
- 14.
Cf. J.S. McClelland, The Crowd and the Mob: From Plato to Canetti (London: Taylor & Francis, 2010), 152.
- 15.
Le Bon’s work was popular among leaders of a number of nation-building projects in the early twentieth century. Aside from China, discussed in this paper, and Japan, also briefly mentioned below, we should also mention Atatürk and his fellow officers in the Young Turk Movement [cf. M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Atatürk: An Intellectual Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011) 44–45].
- 16.
Cf. Thymian Bussemer, Propaganda: Konzepte und Theorien [Propaganda: Concepts and theories] (Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2008), 70–71. Bussemer highlights that Le Bon’s Crowd was the first work to articulate the idea that controlling the ‘collective psyche’ of crowds was achieved through the creation of images, an idea that later became essential in propaganda studies and practice.
- 17.
The famous journalist Walter Lippmann, and Edward Bernays, who is considered one of the ‘inventors’ of the practice of public relations, were both influenced by Le Bon and also cited him. Ivy Lee, one of the earliest ‘public relations’ practitioners in the United States, did not cite Le Bon, but was influenced by his conception of the crowd. Cf. Burton St. John III, “The Case for Ethical Propaganda within a Democracy: Ivy Lee’s 1913–1914 Successful Railroad Campaign,” Public Relations Review 32 (2006): 223.
- 18.
See, for instance, George Lachmann Mosse, Masses and Man: Nationalist and Fascist Perceptions of Reality (Detroit: Wayne State University, 1987), 193. Also see Jay N. Gonen, The Roots of Nazi Psychology: Hitler’s Utopian Barbarism (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003), 92–93.
- 19.
For an introduction to this still largely unexplored field, see Joseph W. Bendersky, “‘Panic’: The Impact of Le Bon’s Crowd Psychology on U.S. Military Thought,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 43, no. 3 (2007): 257–283. For immigration restrictions, see Bendersky, “Panic,” 273.
- 20.
For an introduction to concerns over crowd psychology in the movie industry, see Michael Tratner, “Introduction: Movies and the History of Crowd Psychology” in Crowd Scenes: Movies and Mass Politics (New York: Fordham University Press: 2008), 1–11. The belief in the powers of movies was transnational and transideological, and was shared by the Nazis and the Bolsheviks as much as by Hollywood filmmakers.
- 21.
Cf. Widener, Gustave Le Bon, the Man and his Works, 13 and Richard Pipes, A Concise History of the Russian Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1996), 119.
- 22.
‘Elitists,’ like the Bolsheviks, believed in the necessity of a revolutionary vanguard to aid the ‘laboring masses’ in developing the correct consciousness that would enable them to overthrow their oppressors. Without this elite of ‘professional revolutionaries,’ no revolution could take place. However, there was no unified opinion with regard to the role of elites in the revolution. One famous opponent of the Bolshevik’s ‘elitism,’ for instance, was Rosa Luxemburg.
- 23.
It must be noted that the search for both primary and secondary sources from the first half of the twentieth century and for the time period between 1980 and 2000 is impeded by the fact that a vast number of transcriptions for Le Bon’s name exist (I found seventeen, though there are probably more), a fact first mentioned in Lin Jiangang, “Le Pang sixiang zai Zhongguo de chuanbo ji qi yingxiang” [The spreading of Le Bon’s ideas in China and their impact], Kaifang shidai [Open era] 11 (2009): 81.
- 24.
Lin Jiangang, “Le Pang sixiang,” 79–92.
- 25.
Most importantly, the Chinese language monograph Lishi xuejia de jingxian [The Historian’s Warp] (Guilin: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2007). The book largely consists of revised translations of Sun’s works, which were previously published in English.
- 26.
More on the special role of Japan for China in the early twentieth century below.
- 27.
The Hundred Days’ Reform was a reform movement intended to quickly install a number of reforms and ‘modernize’ China according to Western and Japanese models; It was supported by the Emperor Guangxu. After it was cut short by the clique around Empress Dowager Cixi, the reformers involved were either executed or fled to Japan.
- 28.
The Qing or Manchu were China’s last imperial dynasty, overthrown in 1911.
- 29.
The first Japanese translation I could locate was a joint edition of Crowd and Le Bon’s earlier Les lois psychologiques de l'évolution des peoples: Dai Nippon bunmei kyōkai, trans, Minzokzu shinri, gunshū shinri [Psychology of peoples, psychology of crowds] (Tōkyō: Bunmei shoin, 1915). There were probably earlier (partial) translations, and in any case, there were discussions on ‘crowd psychology’ before 1915; for example, Dai Nippon bunmei kyōkai, ed., Gunshū shinri [Crowd psychology] (Tōkyō: Dai Nippon bunmei kyōkai, 1910).
- 30.
For example, Zhou Zuoren, cf. Zhang Minggao and Fan Qiao, eds., Zhou Zuoren sanwen [Essays by Zhou Zuoren], vol. 2 (Beijing: Zhongguo guangbo dianshi chubanshe,1992), 418.
- 31.
For example, “Qunzhong xinli zhi tezheng” [The characteristics of the psychology of crowds], Dongfang zazhi [Eastern Miscellany] 10, no. 4 (1913): 4–7.
- 32.
Partial translations include, for instance, Chen Cheng, trans, Qunzhong xinli lun [The theory of the psychology of crowds], Fazheng zazhi 5, no. 7 (1915) possibly based on the Japanese translation published in the same year, and Hu Hanmin, “Lü Bang de qunzhong xinli” [Le Bon’s psychology of the masses], Jianshe 1 (1919): 77–101.
- 33.
Wu Xuchu and Du Shiye, trans., Qunzhong xinli [Psychology of crowds] (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1920).
- 34.
Zhong Jianhong, trans, Qunzhong [Crowd] (Shanghai: Shanghai daxin shuju and Tai Dong tushu shuju, 1923).
- 35.
Cf. Sun, Lishi xuejia de jingxian, 61.
- 36.
Chen Duxiu, “Fandui yulun de yongqi” [The courage to oppose public opinion], June 1921 (cited in Sun, Lishi xuejia de jingxian, 59–62).
- 37.
Cf. Sun, Lishi xuejia de jingxian, 62.
- 38.
For a discussion of the reception of Marxism in China, see the Chap. “Marxism, Modernity, and Revolution: The Asian Experience” by Sobhanlal Datta Gupta in this volume.
- 39.
Zhang and Fan, eds., Zhou Zuoren sanwen, 418.
- 40.
This obviously presents additional complications for any standardized translation back into English of the term qunzhong, employed in texts from the time of the May Fourth Movement.
- 41.
Hu, “Qunzhong xinli,” 86.
- 42.
The Boxer Indemnity Scholarship program was funded by war reparations money that China had been forced to pay the United States after a rebellion that was crushed by Western forces in 1900. The Qing court later persuaded the US government to let China benefit from the money by granting scholarships for Chinese to come to study in the United States. The program ran from 1909 to 1937 [cf. Stacey Bieler, “Patriots” or “Traitors”: A History of American-educated Chinese Students (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2004)].
- 43.
See, for instance, Gao Juefu, ed., Qunzhong xinli xue [Crowd Psychology] (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1934).
- 44.
Such as William McDougall (1871–1938), an English psychologist based in the United States who wrote on ‘social psychology’ and was influenced by Le Bon.
- 45.
The article shows a concern with ‘mob rule’ that was quite close to Le Bon’s, in the idea of a mob grabbing hold of and destroying an important part of Chinese culture: the writing system, the exclusive turf of elites for millennia. “Qunzhong xinli” [The psychology of crowds], Shenghuo zhoukan [Life weekly] 4 (1932): 480–481.
- 46.
Jiang Zengyan, “Qunzhong xinli zhi lilun yu shijian” [Theory and practice of crowd psychology], Hunan Daxue jikan [Hunan University Quarterly] 1, no. 4 (1935): 11–12.
- 47.
Cf. McClelland, The Crowd and the Mob, 182.
- 48.
Zhang Jiuru, a psychologist who was also employed by the GMD to train future military leaders wrote the most important work on the topic, a 500-page volume entitled Crowd Psychology and the Leaders of Crowds, in which he summed up the relevant overseas research. Zhang Jiuru, Qunzhong xinli yu qunzhong lingdao [The psychology of crowds and the leaders of crowds] (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1934). By 1938, the third edition had been published.
- 49.
Wu Yuzhen, “Xuanchuan ji qi yingxiang yu Zhongguo shehui bianhua de taolun” [A discussion of propaganda and its influence on the change in Chinese society], Shehui xuejie [The world of sociology] no. 4 (1930): 199–207.
- 50.
Jerome Davis and Harry Elmer Barnes, Introduction to Sociology (Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1931).
- 51.
Zhang Jiuru, Qunzhong xinli [Crowd psychology] (Zhongyang Junxiao, 1929). By 1931, the third edition had been published.
- 52.
The chapters follow the order of chapters in Psychologie des foules, and within the chapters the order of topics discussed and many examples used are also identical. There are a few exceptions spread throughout the book. For instance, in the chapter on the means with which leaders lead the masses (61ff.), Zhang adds substantial passages of his own, talks about Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People (sanmin zhuyi), and quotes Hu Hanmin.
- 53.
Whampoa Military Academy was founded by the GMD in 1924 under the influence of the Soviet Union, which in the early 1920s was on good terms with both the CPC and the GMD. Relations between the GMD and the Soviet Union declined a few years later, although they did not entirely break off during the 1930s. At the time, the Military Academy was no longer located in Whampoa (or Huangpu, in Standard Chinese pronunciation), but had relocated to the new capital, Nanjing.
- 54.
Cf. Bendersky, “Panic.”
- 55.
For example, Hao Gong, “Xuanchuan” [Propaganda], Shehuixue zazhi [Journal of sociology] 4, no. 3–5 (1931): 119–121. The article quoted a German general who declared that the Allies would have stopped their military attacks if they had known of the effectiveness of their propaganda campaign (119–120).
- 56.
Chen Dongyuan, Qunzhong xinli ABC [ABC of crowd psychology] (Shanghai: Shijie shuju, 1929).
- 57.
Ibid., 65. The idea that Le Bon was ‘anti-revolutionary’ was prevalent among some people earlier (as Zhou Zuoren had stated); the main point is that this did not deter people from using his work for their own purposes.
- 58.
Ibid., 68.
- 59.
“The Psychology of the Masses and Leaders,” an essay written in July 1937 by Lin Chuanding, a student of psychology at Qinghua University who had joined the Communist Party a year earlier in 1936 (and who was evidently still in the process of familiarizing himself with the Socialist movement and its leading figures), is one such example. After discussing various points of contention between different European and American authors on crowd psychology and introducing recent research conducted in the United States on the qualities of leaders, he muses on the relationship between intellectuals and the Socialist movement: “Marx, Lenin, and Kroposkin [sic!] were themselves not from the proletariat, but they led the proletarian revolution in their capacity as Bolsheviks [sic!]. This fact tells us academics (xiucai) that if we revolt, we are not doomed to failure. […] Only when the strength of the masses accompanies leaders whose ideological farsightedness surpasses that of the masses can […] a movement of a people to save itself move towards the correct path of success.” Lin Chuanding, “Qunzhong xinli yu lingxiu” [The psychology of crowds and leaders], Qinghua zhoukan [Qinghua weekly] 44, no. 11–12 (1936): 59.
- 60.
Li Hanlin et al., “Chinese Sociology, 1898–1986,” Social Forces 65, no. 3 (1987): 627.
- 61.
Buxin Han and Kan Zhang, “Psychology in China,” The Psychologist 20 (2007): 735.
- 62.
Ma Jian, “Muhanmode de baojian” [Mohammed’s sword], Renmin ribao [People’s daily], January 20, 1951, 3.
- 63.
Hu Sheng, Zao xia luncong [Essay collection from under the date tree] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1962), 294–301. The essay on sociology was written during the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1957–58. Famous sociologist Sun Benwen also reversed his evaluation of Le Bon (cf. Lin Jiangang, “Lepang sixiang,” 88).
- 64.
Hu, Zao xia luncong, 298.
- 65.
The post-Mao period is a term predominantly used in Western academic writing to denote the period known as ‘Reform and Opening’ in China that was launched at the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Party Committee in December 1978, 2 years after Mao Zedong’s death. This session made economic reform and modernization the new primary goal of the CPC and established a new policy of opening up to the outside world (as opposed to the relative isolation in the past) in order to facilitate China’s development.
- 66.
Li Peng 黎朋 in psychology and Le Peng 勒朋 in sociology.
- 67.
Cf. Rudolf Wagner, “Zhonggong 1950–1953 nian jianli zhengqu, zhengwen de zhengce dalüe,” [The establishing of the policy of correct-speak and correct-write in China, 1950–1953] in Wenyi lilun yu tongsu wenhua [Literary theory and popular culture], ed. Peng Xiaoyan (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan Zhongguo wenzhe yanjiusuo, 1999), 23.
- 68.
Chen Zhe, “Zhongguo wangluo qunti shidai xia de wangluo baoli” [Internet violence in China’s age of internet crowds], Zhishi jingji [Knowledge economy] no. 6 (2009): 69.
- 69.
Cf. Anne-Marie Brady, “Regimenting the Public Mind: The Modernization of Propaganda in the PRC,” International Journal 57, no. 4 (2002): 563–578.
- 70.
Cf. Alex Chan, “Guiding Public Opinion through Social Agenda-Setting: China’s Media Policy since the 1990s,” Journal of Contemporary China, vol. 16, no. 63 (2007): 547–48. Edward Bernays has been called ‘the father of spin’ and is credited with the invention of ‘public relations.’
- 71.
‘Crowd psychology’ and leadership was definitely discussed soon after 1989. E.g. Ma Xinjian, Wuxing de zhisheng wuqi: Qunti xinli yu lingdao moulüe [An invisible weapon for victory: Crowd psychology and leadership strategy] (Jinan: Huanghe chubanshe, 1990).
- 72.
Gustave Le Bon, Wuhe zhi zhong : Dazhong xinli yanjiu [The mob: Research on mass psychology], translated by Feng Keli (Beijing: Zhongyang bianyi chubanshe, 2000).
- 73.
There is, for instance, one ‘translation’ sold under the title The Art of Manipulating Psychology: The Truth about Political leaders and Business Elites Manipulating the Psychology of Masses (Xinli caokongshu: zhengjie lingxiu, shangjie jingying caokong dazhong xinli de zhenxiang), which was ‘translated’ by a person called Zhou Ting and first published in September 2009 (Beijing: Xin shijie chubanshe). A comparison with the Feng Keli version indicates that this is a plagiarized translation that slightly alters and occasionally paraphrases the translation from 2000 as well as switches the order of prefaces around so as to create the impression of being an original translation.
- 74.
No author, “Wuhe zhi zhong” [Mob], Zhongxuesheng baike [Middle school students’ encyclopedia], no. 12 (2002): 34.
- 75.
For example, Wan Bin, “Wangluo yulun zhong de qunti xianxiang” [Group phenomena in online public opinion], in Makesi zhuyi yu dangdai [Marxism and the Contemporary] (Hangzhou: Zhejiang daxue chubanshe, 2009), 218.
- 76.
Zhang Hongxing, “Zhongguo minzhuhua daolu zhi sikao” [Reflections on China’s path of democratization], Jiti jingji [Collective economy] no. 2 (2010): 80.
- 77.
Zhang quotes the Feng Keli translation, while the passage cited here is from Le Bon, Crowd (2002), 49. Zhang, “Zhongguo minzhuhua,” 80.
- 78.
Cf. Suisheng Zhao, “A State-Led Nationalism: The Patriotic Education Campaign in Post-Tiananmen China,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 31, no. 3 (1998): 293–95.
- 79.
Zhao Tingyang, Tianxia tixi: shijie zhidu zhexue daolun [The system of ‘all under heaven’: Introduction into the philosophy of the world system] (Nanjing: Jiangsu jiaoyu chubanshe, 2005).
- 80.
Peng Bo, “The Main Problems Relating to Internet News Propaganda” China Digital Times. http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2009/12/peng-bo-%E5%BD%AD%E6%B3%A2-%E2%80%9Cthe-main-problems-relating-to-internet-news-propaganda%E2%80%9D/. Accessed January 3, 2010.
- 81.
Tianxia, “all under heaven,” is the term used for the world in the traditional Chinese world order, which sees the world as a system of concentric circles with China at the center of civilization and with the power to assimilate and ‘sinicize’ other cultures. The further away an area is from the center, the lower its level of civilization.
- 82.
Zhao, Tianxia tixi, 27–28.
- 83.
Including, for instance, investment strategies and education.
- 84.
Often, Crowd is only cited as an authoritative work in the footnotes, not necessarily analyzed in detail. This may be due to several factors: authors might not be encouraged to discuss the politically explosive nature of what Le Bon has to say (lambasting the masses, which are officially still the ‘masters of the state’ in China) in public. It seems more likely, however, that Le Bon has simply become the standard work to cite when speaking of ‘mass psychology’ and the phenomena associated with it.
- 85.
For instance, Yan Ke and Hu Dandan, “Quntixing shijian xinlixue fenxi” [Psychological analysis of group incidents]. Fazhi yu shehui [Legal system and society], no. 5 (2009): 231. Also see Zhou Baogang, Shehui zhuanxingqi qunti xing shijian yufang, chuzhi gongzuo fanglüe [Strategies for preventing and handling crowd incidents in the period of transition] (Beijing: Zhongguo gongan daxue chubanshe, 2008), 62.
- 86.
For instance, Yan and Hu, “Quntixing shijian,” 231, which cites the concepts a group has been exposed to as an important factor determining whether or not people will join a riot. The authors also view education as a reason more incidents occur in the countryside than in cities.
- 87.
Ibid.
- 88.
For example, Xiu Naili, Zhengzhi xinlixue daolun [Introduction to political philosophy] (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 2010). This volume has two subchapters that are concerned with Le Bon and crowd psychology.
- 89.
Yan and Hu, “Quntixing shijian,” 231–232.
- 90.
Ibid., 231.
- 91.
This depiction, which was already used in Imperial China, was taken up by turn-of-the-century reformers and revolutionaries (cf. Joan Judge, “Publicists and populists: Including the common people in the Late Qing new citizen ideal,” in Imagining the People, ed. Joshua Fogel and Peter Zarrow (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), 167), and survived both the 1911 revolution and the 1949 establishment of the PRC. (Examples from the Post-Mao period include framing of the Cultural Revolution and the 1989 protests.)
- 92.
Yan and Hu, “Quntixing shijian,” 232.
- 93.
Cf. Suisheng Zhao, “China’s Pragmatic Nationalism: Is it Manageable?” Washington Quarterly 29, no. 1 (2005–06): 142.
- 94.
Liu Feng, “Zhi duzhi: Xiang qi Le Pang” [To the readers: Thinking of Le Bon], Xin shiji zhoukan [New century weekly] no. 14 (2008): 4.
- 95.
Peng Bo, “Main problems.”
- 96.
Cf. Yu Jianhua, “Wangluo wuhe zhi zhong: Yi zhong shehui xinli yanjiu” [The Internet mob: A type of analysis in social psychology], Dangdai qingnian yanjiu [Contemporary youth research] no. 2 (2009): 68–71.
- 97.
For example, Liu Weijie, “‘Renrou sousuo’: yincang de xinli baoli––cong Lepang qunti xinli lilun fenxi wangmin xinli” [‘Human flesh search engine: hidden psychological violence––Analyzing netizens’ psychology from the theory of Le Bon’s group psychology], Xinwen shijie [News world] no. 4 (2009): 105–106.
- 98.
Chen Zhe, “Zhongguo wangluo qunti shidai,” 69.
- 99.
Online spin-doctoring happened as early as the mid-1990s. For some early examples, see Thomas Valovic, Digital Mythologies: The Hidden Complexities of the Internet (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000), 103ff. In China, although the system was stimulated by the Party center and issues of national importance are presumably coordinated at the central level, in reality, each locality and each institution (such as universities) has a propaganda department that administers the commentator system to deal mostly with local issues. Hence, there is no one ‘Five Cent Party,’ but a variety of different local arrangements.
Abbreviations
- CPC:
-
Chinese Communist Party
- GMD:
-
Guomindang 國民黨—The Chinese Nationalist Party
- PRC:
-
People’s Republic of China
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Acknowledgments
The idea for writing about Le Bon in China initially grew out of an enquiry into the transnational origins of the Chinese concept of propaganda beyond the Soviet model and a consequent look at how ‘Western’ propaganda ‘classics’ were received and discussed in China. The search for Gustave Le Bon’s Crowd yielded considerably more results than I had expected, judging by the relatively few references made to Le Bon in both Chinese and ‘Western’ language secondary literature. I would like to thank Prof. Rudolf Wagner, as well as the editors of this volume, Prof. Antje Flüchter and Dr. Jivanta Schöttli for their invaluable feedback on this paper.
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Ohlberg, M. (2015). The Era of Crowds: Gustave Le Bon, Crowd Psychology, and Conceptualizations of Mass-Elite Relations in China. In: Flüchter, A., Schöttli, J. (eds) The Dynamics of Transculturality. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09740-4_8
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