This book argues that although "the mob" and "the people" appear to be very separate concepts, they share a common ideological history. Hayes traces the developments undergone by the concepts of "people" and "mob" in modern European ideologies, and he examines Marx's depiction of the lumpenproletariat, Le Bon's analysis of the crowd, fascist depictions of the masses, and corporatist views of the political threat posed by the mob. He also discusses the implications of the distinction between the people and the mob for democracy providing a case study of the 1984-85 British miner's strike and reviewing the rhetoric of politicians in the new democracies of Eastern Europe.