First published in Spanish in 1930, The Revolt of the Masses examines the emergence of what Ortega calls the “mass-man”: not simply a member of the working class or a large crowd, but a modern personality produced by abundance, technical progress and mass society.

This figure inherits the benefits of civilisation while treating them as natural facts, feeling little obligation to understand, preserve or justify the systems on which his life depends. Ortega’s fears a society in which opinion becomes indistinguishable from authority, expertise is resented, and public life is governed by people certain of their rights but indifferent to intellectual discipline or inherited responsibility.

The book remains both influential and deeply contentious: its diagnosis of complacency, political spectacle and technological ingratitude can feel unnervingly current, while its language of minorities, excellence and the masses carries an unmistakably elitist—and at times openly reactionary—charge. Best read as a brilliant, abrasive document of interwar European anxiety rather than a neutral theory of democracy.

Originally published as La rebelión de las masas. This authorised English translation remains anonymous at the translator’s request.

W. W. Norton, 1993 reissue. Paperback. Light rubbing and minor handling wear; clean and firmly bound.