Product Description

Eric Hoffer--one of America's most important thinkers and the author of The True Believer--lived for years as a Depression Era migratory worker. Self-taught, his appetite for knowledge--history, science, mankind--formed the basis of his insight to human nature. Nowhere is this more evident than in Hoffer's seminal work, The Ordeal of Change, essays on the duality and essentiality of change in man throughout history. SPECIAL EDITION includes text handwritten message from Eric Hoffer.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #139834 in Books
• Published on: 1990-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Library Binding

Review
He seems like a being who had just emerged from unknown depths, startled, overjoyed at what he saw about him -- Eric Sevareid, broadcaster, journalist

From the Publisher
Eric Hoffer--philosopher, author of the timeless tome The True Believer, and a truly great American thinker--gets to the essence of mankind through the ages in The Ordeal of Change.

From the Author
If anybody asks me what I have accomplished, I will say all I have accomplished is that I have written a few good sentences.

Customer Reviews

Down-to-earth philosophy and insight into change
Eric Hoffer is a remarkable individual, a self-educated philosopher and original thinker. He made an incredible impact years ago with his first book, The True Believer, which became a cult classic. A generation later, it has been (temporarily) forgotten, along with his second book, which never received the recognition it deserved. The Ordeal of Change relates how human beings deal with change in a series of essays that are both easy to relate to, meaningful to academics and lay people alike, and reflective of scholarship and common-sense. Why are we both attracted to and afraid of change? Hoffer's very readable book answers these questions in understandable and well-grounded terms. I have recommended this book to a dozen executives who have had to deal with resistance to change in their organizations, and somehow never came across this remarkable work by a San Francisco longshoreman who is a rival as a thinker to the best of more recognized intellectuals. Surprise someone whose mind you admire and wish to challenge with this as a gift, and do yourself a favor, proving that you can compete in the world of ideas. I didn't get my copy back from the last person I loaned it to, and can't remember who it was, so I have to buy a second copy of one of my all time favorites.

Good, not as great as his earlier works
Eric Hoffers book, The True Believer is probolly the best book I have ever read. It gives insight into human nature that helped me understand the behavior of other people and even myself. It changed my view of the world I live in. Obviously it made a huge impact on me.

Because I was so impressed I quickly bought Hoffers other book The Ordeal of Change. I felt somewhat disapointd with this. I found it to lack the insight into human nature that his earlier work did. The Ordeal of Change seems to discuss how change occurs among a group of people rather than individuals. The True Believer discussed why individuals join groups, there was more emphasis on the individual than the group.

The book is still good. Perhaps I feel dispointed only because I cannot help but compare it to The True Believer which was a masterpiece. I still recomend this book but suggest that you read The True Believer as well.

He walked to the sound of his own drummer
This work contains a mixture of autobiography and philosophical and social reflection. Hoffer wrote ," My writing grows out of my life, just like a branch out of a tree" And his lifelong journey in learning was really integral to his own life. He began reading Montaigne and spent a lifetime reading more and learning all the time. He makes it clear here that he like most human beings fears change, but understands that to truly thrive from change one must learn, understood that those who rely on what they have learned long ago will have the world pass them. In other words he recommended that Societies like individuals be engaged in a continual process of learning and developing.
Hoffer was a one- of - a kind original. A truly decent person, who walked to the sound of his own drummer. Admirable in his anti- totalitarian stance and his refusal to be cowed by intellectual trend or fashion. He was a believer in American freedom , and an example of what a free - society can produce- at its best.