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Gustave Le Bon (1841–1931) was a French physician who became a traveller, anthropologist and popular writer on society and psychology. He journeyed through North Africa, the Middle East and India, and his book The Civilisation of the Arabs (1884) admired the achievements of Arab science and culture at a time when such views were rare in Europe; translated by Adel Zuaiter, it became a classic in Arabic.

His most influential book, The Crowd (1895), argued that people in a crowd lose their individual judgement, and was read by Freud as well as by politicians of every kind. The library holds several of his works in Arabic translation.