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Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds Paperback – July 25, 1995

by Charles Mackay (Author), Andrew Tobias (Foreword)

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A complete repackaging of the classic work about grand-scale madness, major schemes, and bamboozlement--and the universal human susceptibility to all three. This informative, funny collection encompasses a broad range of manias and deceptions, from witch burnings to the Great Crusades to the prophecies of Nostradamus.

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epackaging of the classic work about grand-scale madness, major schemes, and bamboozlement--and the universal human susceptibility to all three. This informative, funny collection encompasses a broad range of manias and deceptions, from witch burnings to the Great Crusades to the prophecies of Nostradamus.

Paperback: 768 pages
Publisher: Broadway Books; Reprint edition (July 25, 1995)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 051788433X
ISBN-13: 978-0517884331
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.4 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Customer Reviews: 153 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,541,157 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3815 in Economic History (Books)
- #4484 in Popular Social Psychology & Interactions
- #1342 in Trivia & Fun Facts (Books)

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5 star		51%
4 star		11%
3 star		6%
2 star		9%
1 star		21%

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Anjo

FRAUD ALERT: This is only an index, NOT the book itself

Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

FRAUD! This is only an index of the book, not the actual book. That is NOT disclosed in the description. I cannot believe that this is still allowed to be sold.

43 people found this helpful

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Packratmac

A Popular Delusion

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This book is enumerated with 500+ pages. But it opens with the index and quickly progresses to the end of the book - there is no content ! Whether this is why the book was so inexpensive or is a mistake I don't know. "There is no there there." When I look for customer service, I am linked to a book to be ordered for $2.99 so I guess I'll eat this 99 cents.

22 people found this helpful

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Padremellyrn

The book to have

Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is a book to have in these days. You can clearly see after reading this that many people, countries included did not learn from their failures, and thus are doomed to repeat the same, sad, silly, useless mistakes. I occasionally buy copies of the book to hand out to my students where I work.

One edition I have, when I originally bought the book in the early days of the market boom, before it went bust, had a foreword by Andrew Tobias who said "If you read nothing else in this book, read about the economic bubbles." (the South Sea Company bubble of 1711–1720, the Mississippi Company bubble of 1719–1720, and the Dutch tulip mania of the early seventeenth century). And he was right, when people were rushing off to buy stock at top dollar as they 'went public', I counselled many friends to look at what they were buying. One manager I knew got into the bubble mania and bought several thousand dollars of pre-IPO stock. Day one the stock jumps some 1000% in few hours (roughly it was $5.50 to start and $55 by the end of the day), and is lording it over everyone; 6 months later when he could sell it (according to contract) it was down to $2 and something a share.

This is book that should be on the shelf of every home library. From the Witch trials in Salem, to the Alchemists and other charlatans he shows us that the world is filled with people with who are always with the crowd and utterly mad.

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one." - Charles Mackay

"We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first." - Charles Mackay

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MsFit

Look for another edition

Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

The book is edifying but has problems for readers who are not aware of what they are downloading. First, some people will have difficulty with the fact that, having been originally published in the early 19th century, the style and language are archaic. This is a matter of preference and did not bother me but may annoy some. Second, although the Kindle version I received was more than the 97-page outline some received, it is not the complete book and consists only of two volumes versus the original three. However, the omitted subjects included in the omitted volumes were folded into the two that I did receive, though subjects original to those volumes were omitted. What I received was interesting and enlightening. I would, however, have much preferred to have received the book in its original and complete form. I recommend looking for an unabridged publication.

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Laur W

buy this!

Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2019

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

i bought this as a stocking stuffer for my boyfriend for christmas. he’s a voracious reader like myself, intellectually curious and he’s read everything but he said “i can’t believe i’ve never heard of this book”. i got mine as a gift more than 10 years ago from my brother and i feel the same way. if you have a hard-to-buy-for person who loves to read, and/or is interested in the economy or cultural anthropology this is a great read. the book came in exactly the condition i expected and given the choice always choose the large unabridged version with alllll the articles.

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Notvinnik

Popular journalism of the 19th century

Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2010

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Just to be clear, since reviews sometimes seem to get moved around, this refers to the 2008 Wilder paperback edition. The text is complete, but there is no table of contents or index, and the illustrations are missing. I subsequently found a nicer edition used at a flea market.

One way to approach a work like this is to look for relevance to our own times. MacKay's catalog of human folly certainly lends itself to that approach. The chapter on the Mississipi Bubble? Think Enron, or Bernie Madoff. The Crusades? Well, there's the perpetual mess in the Middle East, but we can think of any war which was supposed to set things right in some remote part of the world. Alchemy and fortune telling? The Twentieth and Twenty-First centuries certainly have not given up on new-age nonsense.

Personally, I prefer to enjoy a work like this on its own terms. MacKay's writing style is still robust and highly readable today. His energy, and enthusiasm for the subject matter are contagious, whether the topic is witch hunts, famous poisoners, or changing styles in men's hair and beards.

Each chapter stands pretty much by itself, leaving the impression that this is a collection of essays which may not have been originally meant as parts of a single book. The prose style seems somewhat formal and scholarly in our time, but it gradually dawns that this is actually popular journalism of its era. The author is trying to inform, but also to entertain.

Some sections are stronger than others. The Mississippi Bubble chapter is certainly one of the most interesting, as we watch speculation in a dubious financial scheme spiral out of control. The chapter on the Crusades is a decent introduction to the subject, stressing the sheer irrationality of what happened. I believe the narrative is still fairly close to how many modern historians see it.

On the other hand, there are times where the author rambles a little. The chapter on alchemy (or "alchymy") turns into a rather tedious and uninstructive catalog of individual alchemists. "Popular Follies of Great Cities" seems like filler material, although it's not uninteresting.

MacKay's outlook is determinedly rational and skeptical, which comes across well when he discusses such subjects as witch hunting mania, or fortune telling. At one point, though, it seems that his skepticism fails him, when he is discussing famous poisoners. He discusses poisoning cases which were decades or centuries in the past, even for him, and seems willing to accept the contemporary accounts as literally true. At one point, while admitting that confessions elicited by torture are generally worthless, he accepts one such confession as being true nevertheless. Well, nobody's perfect.

The title page of the Wilder edition contains one of those annoying modern PC parental warnings, stating that this work reflects the values of a previous age, and that parents might want to discuss its attitudes toward race with their children. Why must we be so hyper-sensitive? If MacKay occasionally uses different language than we would select today, it is nevertheless obvious that he is as tolerant and unprejudiced as can be expected for a man of his time. If we've moved beyond that, it's still no reason to be paranoid about the standards of an earlier time.

It's interesting, though, to realize that when MacKay writes of the customs of the past, in some cases he is discussing things that were still an issue in his own time. When he writes of the irrationality of dueling, he is discussing something that was still going on in 1841, when his book was first published. Dueling had been illegal in civilized Europe for a couple of centuries by then, but was still occurring, as a culture of honor could make it hard for a man to refuse a challenge. The author's proposal for a solution seems distinctly odd to us, but makes a certain amount of sense in the context of the times.

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GJC

Fascinating book - delighted to own this.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 14, 2020

Verified Purchase

After watching an episode of QI where Sandi Toksvig mentioned that this book was one of her favourite reads, I went on a mission to find it. I scoured the country and then abroad for the original (it is readily available as a modern facsimile) and my old copy came from America. I am absolutely delighted with my antique book and have already recommended it to a friend who has purchased it and read even more than me - it can be heavy going, but is so enlightening and interesting. It is a great book to have on the shelf and to dip in and out of.

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demola

Small Volume, Big Lessons

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 6, 2011

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This is an extract from the book of the same name and covers three episodes: the Mississippi Scheme, The South Sea Bubble and Tulipomania. We've all heard the stories and there's nothing that makes them sink in like the details. These people who get sucked in these delusions are really stupid. There but for the grace of God ....

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Karen Gregory

Perfect condition clear print

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 21, 2019

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Perfect condition can’t wait to start reading

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Jonathan of Lincoln

Remarkable, escellent. Required reading for those who question ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 22, 2016

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Remarkable, escellent. Required reading for those who question decisions!

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anwyn

Fantastic read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 10, 2019

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Amazing book. Very informative and extremely entertaining

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Mr. T. Readman

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 1, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Great

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Amazon Customer

Social Studies

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 16, 2016

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I dip into this book sometimes, but it is still a very good read.

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Martin

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 15, 2016

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Got a certain charm to the language due to its age but is still very readable.

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M R CHERRY

Vapid

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 28, 2015

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A bit vapid

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Warren

Popular book to be still in print since 1841

Reviewed in Canada on July 4, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Timeless book outlining the crowd, or herd mentality. Written in 1841, the language of the times is apparent. If you are worried about reading something that was politically correct back then but not now, then you may want to skip this. However the book does detail the events of the past that still happen today. Bitcoin vs the tulip mania. As the back cover reads "Learn why intelligent people do amazingly stupid things when caught up in speculative edevorse." That last word must be old English.

2 people found this helpful

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Mark Schimmer

Timeless

Reviewed in Germany on February 20, 2020

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The pattern of popular delusions is seemingly as active as ever in our times, and Mackays book gives some great and often grizzly evidence of the consequences of mass hysteria in the past. It also shows that there seems to be some sort of propensity in the human psyche to follow such phenomena and one should be beware of such tendencies.
Mackay also showed that there are always ideologies, institutions and people who know all this and try to employ these mass delusion mechanisms to achieve their own goals.
If someone would pick this up in a few years and continue it up to our modern times, there would be a lot to write. 20th century, blind rages with millions of dead commited in the name of socialism, nationalism, religion, today ideological power struggle by seeding climate hysteria, identity politics and moral superiority and so on. The underlying problem is as rife as ever. Oh humanity.
I absolutely do love the old english language in which it was written, and the more humorous episodes in it, but that's subjective, of course.

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de-pomme

Read Wikipedia instead.

Reviewed in Canada on October 17, 2016

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As the financial edition it only contains small portions of the original text pertaining to finance; specifically economic bubbles. I suppose it's an interesting read if you enjoy original sources, else save the cash and read the Wikipedia entries on the Mississippi Scheme, South Sea Company and the Dutch Tulip Craze.

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Rohit. Navale

Must for wannabe traders.

Reviewed in India on August 23, 2017

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This book should be read by everyone who wants to enter the market and trade. All major debacles of market are listed and explained in reasonable detail suitable for this kind of book. Good luck.

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Carsten

Human folly

Reviewed in Germany on May 6, 2014

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I have to confess, whilst reading the book, I caught myself being excited by the promises/hopes/desires of the alchemist. I was a little bit shocked, because all they had "said" had been what I wanted to hear. Simply because of this experience this book had been a great educational purpose and sums up the theme of the entire book and its various examples and stories.

In other words: What you will find are various forms of creating excitement in people by telling them what they want to hear/believe. The book goes on to show how this excitement creates energy, and how this energy is released after the erected edifice comes down crashing.

I gave 4 stars, because the part on the alchemists was so long. It got to a point, at wich it became tiresome. On the other hand, it helped to catch my own foly as described at the begining.

Be that as it may, it's a good read with a lot of interesting stries, and thus well suited for long flights.

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Davinder Mohan Sood

Better to buy the original book

Reviewed in India on October 9, 2014

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This book does not provide the original stories. It only provides 3 incomplete stories. The original book contains over 10 stories. Better to buy the original book.

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