30th October
6.30-9pm
Join us to celebrate the publication of Multitudes: How Crowds Made the Modern World by Dan Hancox. Dan will be in conversation with Hettie O'Brien.
In pursuit of the liberating powers of the crowd. Despite what politicians, philosophers and the press have long told us, every peaceful crowd is not a violent mob in waiting. Dan Hancox argues it is time to rethink long-held assumptions about crowd behaviour and psychology, as well as the part crowds play in our lives. The story of the modern world is the story of multitudes in action. Crowds are the ultimate force for change: the bringer of conviviality, euphoria, mass culture and democracy.
Behind the establishment’s long war against crowds is the work of eccentric proto-fascist Gustave Le Bon. Having witnessed the revolutionary Paris Commune, he declared the crowd barbaric, the enemy of all that was civilized. In the twentieth century, his theory influenced Mussolini, Hitler and Freud alike. It moulded the policing of our communities and the new industry of public relations, shaping our cities and politics.
From raucous football matches and raves to rubber-bullet-riddled riots, Dan Hancox takes us into the crowd’s pulsating heart to pose the questions that will define our age. Is the madness of crowds real? What did the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill share with the Nuremberg rallies? What fresh dangers are posed to free assembly by the surveillance society? And how has a radical new generation of psychologists begun to change everything – even the policing of protests?
Dan Hancox is a journalist who writes about music, politics, cities, riots and protest, chiefly for the Guardian and Observer, but also the New York Times, Newsweek, Vice, New Statesman and Financial Times. His books include Inner City Pressure: The Story of Grime (William Collins, 2018) and The Village Against The World (Verso, 2013).
Hettie O'Brien is the author of Diminishing Returns (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2026), the Guardian's assistant opinion editor, and a contributing writer at the Guardian Long Read. She writes about economics, politics, finance and climate change.