Ortega y Gasset, José (1883–1955)

José Ortega y Gasset was a Spanish philosopher and an essayist. Ortega was born in Madrid and became a teacher to an entire generation of writers in Spain and Latin America. He was the author of a number of essays known for their elegant and witty style. Ortega's best-known work, The Revolt of the Masses, was published in 1930. In it he describes a new sort of human being, which he calls the Mass Man. The Mass Man is the product of the unprecedented material abundance that European civilization had achieved during the 19th century. This prosperity brought with it a sudden increase in population, which in turn produced two effects that, when combined, led to devastating results. First, the Mass Man has by sheer ...