Author: José Ortega y Gasset.
- Non-Fiction
- Austral
- ISBN: 9788467033533
- Release Date: 01-01-1970
-Reviewed by: Bernat Dedéu

Of all the philosophical works written in Spanish, The Revolt of the Masses (La rebelión de las masas) is perhaps the one which has been translated more often and has had more intellectual influence on a worldwide scale. This is not mere chance; the book, written in 1926 and published four years later, projects onto a more ambitious global setting the intuitions which its author had sketched in Invertebrate Spain (La España invertebrada), from which society is structured in reciprocal action between the masses and a select minority of citizens. This interaction allows society to evolve, if the minorities are virtuous classes who should guide the general will of the masses toward good actions. In The Revolt of the Masses, Ortega y Gasset anticipated something that at the time few had recognized, namely, the characterization of a new paradigm of the mass-man, a depersonalized being who only thinks of the free expansion and fulfillment of his primary needs and desires and who does not express any gratitude for the historic and social conditions which have made possible his well-being as well as the political normalcy of his existence. A man, who failing to appeal to a higher and virtuous exemplar which he can imitate, becomes easy prey for totalitarian regimes and dictatorships. A paradigm, which, as World War II demonstrated, has survived in our time and perhaps is even more dangerous.