A German word that translates literally as ‘spirit of the time’. It is used to describe social, cultural, and intellectual trends, but it also implies that there is some kind of superhuman ‘force’ at work influencing the actions and decisions of entire peoples. While such a phantasmal force is difficult to document empirically, the fact that something like it must exist can be seen in the various fads that every historical period seems to know. Why people en masse did one thing rather than another at a certain point in time is very often accounted for in terms of zeitgeist.