Philosophy · Similar reads
Books like The True Believer
The best books like The True Believer are The Origins of Totalitarianism, Obedience to Authority, and The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. The True Believer by Eric Hoffer is about mass movements, fanaticism, identity. If that's what drew you in, here are 12 books that share its DNA — each summarized on Superbook, and ready to chat with in the app.
- The Origins of Totalitarianism
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The Origins of Totalitarianism
Hannah Arendt · History
Hannah Arendt published The Origins of Totalitarianism in 1951, just six years after the end of World War II.
A kindred philosophy read.
Read the summary → - Obedience to Authority
02
Stanley Milgram · Psychology
In the early 1960s, Stanley Milgram recruited ordinary people off the street and asked them to administer what they believed were increasingly severe electric shocks to another person on the orders of an experimenter in a lab coat.
A kindred philosophy read.
Read the summary → - The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
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The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
Jonathan Haidt · Psychology
The Righteous Mind is Jonathan Haidt's argument that moral reasoning is not the source of our moral judgments — it's the press secretary for them.
A kindred philosophy read.
Read the summary → - The Anatomy of Fascism
- Letters and Papers from Prison
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Letters and Papers from Prison
Dietrich Bonhoeffer · Philosophy
Letters and Papers from Prison is a posthumous collection of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's correspondence written during his imprisonment at Tegel military prison in Berlin between April 1943 and October 1944, along with some earlier papers and the poem "Who Am I?" written near the end.
Both dig into identity.
Read the summary → - Status Anxiety
06
Alain de Botton · Philosophy
Status Anxiety is Alain de Botton's 2004 examination of why modern people are so consumed with their standing in others' eyes, and what philosophy, art, and history can offer as remedies.
Both dig into identity.
Read the summary → - Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives
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Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives
David Eagleman · Philosophy
Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives is a collection of forty short, fictional vignettes, each imagining a different version of what happens after death.
Both dig into identity.
Read the summary → - The Architecture of Happiness
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Alain de Botton · Philosophy
The Architecture of Happiness is Alain de Botton's investigation into why certain buildings make us feel more alive and others leave us deflated.
Both dig into identity.
Read the summary → - The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
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The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
Alan Watts · Philosophy
The Book, published in 1966, is Alan Watts's most direct attempt to explain the central illusion he spent his career examining: the belief that each of us is a separate self, enclosed in skin, confronting an alien world.
Both dig into identity.
Read the summary → - The Mind's I
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Douglas Hofstadter & Daniel Dennett · Philosophy
The Mind's I is a collaborative anthology edited by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett, two of the most influential thinkers on consciousness and mind of the late twentieth century.
Both dig into identity.
Read the summary → - The Wisdom of Insecurity
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Alan Watts · Philosophy
The Wisdom of Insecurity, published in 1951, is Alan Watts's argument that the anxiety pervading modern life is a direct consequence of the attempt to find permanent security in an impermanent world.
Both dig into identity.
Read the summary → - A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
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A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Dave Eggers · Memoir
Dave Eggers's debut memoir about losing both parents to cancer within five weeks and raising his younger brother Toph while trying to start a literary magazine in San Francisco in the mid-1990s arrived in 2000 with unusual self-consciousness about its own nature.
Both dig into identity.
Read the summary →
Books like The True Believer: quick answers
What are the best books like The True Believer?
The best books like The True Believer by Eric Hoffer are The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt, The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton, Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with The True Believer, such as mass movements, fanaticism, identity.
What should I read after The True Believer?
A natural next read after The True Believer is The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt. A kindred philosophy read. Other strong choices are Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt, The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton.
What books are similar to The True Believer by Eric Hoffer?
The True Believer centers on mass movements, fanaticism, identity. Books with a similar feel include The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt, The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton, Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
