Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds
Details and Description
Description
“Today, as in the time of the South Sea Bubble, human nature is drawn like a moth to flame by the speculative fads of the marketplace. The excitement of new glamour issues in electronics or medical technology, the general euphoria over a rising market; these lure even many experienced investors. Their optimism overcomes their better judgment. They abandon critical analysis of the investment's fundamental value. Like gamblers in a casino they play against the odds, paying inflated prices and dreaming of quick profit.” — from the foreword by John Marks Templeton
Mackay's classic, first published in 1841, studies the psychology of crowds and mass mania throughout history, including accounts of classic scams, grand-scale madness, and deceptions. Some of these include the Mississippi scheme that swept France in 1720, the South Sea Bubble that ruined thousands in England at the same time, and the tulip mania of Holland, when fortunes were made and lost on single tulip bulbs.
Other chapters deal with fads and delusions that often spring from valid ideas of causes, many of which still have their followers today: alchemy and the philosopher's stone, the prophecies of Nostradamus, the coming of comets and judgment day, the Rosicrucians, and astrology.
Time and again we can avoid disastrous pitfalls and learn to profit by seeing the ways that history repeats itself. Fascinating, mesmerizing, strikingly strange, and amazingly shrewd, this book will never be forgotten and cannot be ignored.
Table of Contents
The Mississippi Scheme / 1–45
The South–Sea Bubble / 46–88
The Tulipomania / 89–97
The Alchymists / 98–256
Modern Prophecies / 257–280
Fortune–Telling / 281–303
The Magnetisers / 304–345
Influence of Politics and Religion on the Hair and Beard / 346–353
The Crusades / 354–461
The Witch Mania / 462–564
The Slow Poisoners / 565–592
Haunted Houses / 593–618
Popular Follies of Great Cities / 619–631
Duels and Ordeals / 647–694
Relics / 695–702
Endorsements and Reviews
Reviews
Midwest Book Review, The—Oregon, WI
Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds is an important historical treatise that modern readers will find fascinating, engaging, and shrewd as they see how history repeats itself, but that disastrous pitfalls can be avoided by understanding the cycles and patterns of greed based ignorance plays in promoting and perpetuating group hysteria in the fields of business and finance, politics and superstitions. —Thomas G Whelan, reviewer.
Forbes Global
This classic and still relevant study of popular delusions and their results for investors contains important messages that apply to investor’s behavior today.
Amazon.com
Essential reading for any student of human nature or the transmission of ideas.