This book, first published in 1930 and reissued in 1961, examines the Western phenomenon of the rise of the ‘mass-man’. Analysing the state of society before the Second World War, acclaimed philosopher Ortega y Gasset lays bare the problems that faced the countries of Europe in a book that resonates today in the imposition of direct action over discussion.
1. The Coming of the Masses 2. The Rise of the Historic Level 3. The Height of the Times 4. The Increase of Life 5. A Statistical Life 6. The Dissection of the Mass-Man Begins 7. Noble Life and Common Life, or Effort and Inertia 8. Why the Masses Intervene in Everything, and Why Their Intervention is Solely by Violence 9. The Primitive and the Technical 10. Primitivism and History 11. The Self-Satisfied Age 12. The Barbarism of ‘Specialization’ 13. The Greatest Danger, the State 14. Who Rules in the World? 15. We Arrive at the Real Question
