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A psychoanalyst, a social historian, and an anthropological historian share their different views on fanaticism in this work. Despite their divergent perspectives, the reader can sense their collaboration in the organization of the material, which—far from being a mere compilation of ideas and data—reads as a complex, yet unified, whole.
The profile of fanatic ideology is shown across the centuries, whether in the messianic delusions of an individual or transformed into a highly organized political or military machine for destruction. The Inquisition, national chauvinism, anti-Semitism, sectarianism, and studies of the terrorist Ravachol and of the anarchist Netchaiev—these are used to explore and clarify not only the structure of fanaticism, but also the sociological conditions that make its appearance possible, perhaps predictable.
Fanatic passion has also, of course, motivated the acts of venerated heroes, empire-builders, revolutionaries, and conquerors. Miklos Molnar, the social historian, shows us, in a colorful style, how difficult it is to recognize the fanatic next to us, if we happen to agree with his aspirations—or, even more, the one within ourselves. He wonders if history would be other than a "wasteland" without fanatics: "Fanatics of all kinds, of salvation or death, of progress or conservatism, of destruction or regeneration, we owe them our religions, our countries, our revolutions, our wars" (my translation).
It was only in the course of the eighteenth century, thanks to the Rationalists, preachers of tolerance, that the term "fanaticism" came to be used pejoratively. Voltaire noted in the Encyclopédie that the fanatic kept a good conscience despite criminal activity. This new attitude did not prevent the French Revolution from becoming as passionately religious or as calculatingly destructive as the Inquisition. Gerard de Puymège, the anthropological historian, who gives a fascinating account of that period, remarks that miniature reproductio