- Unknown Binding: 724 pages
- Publisher: Noonday Press (1970)
- Language English
- ASIN: B0008557EQ
- Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 13.5 x 3.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
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First Sentence
The personal character and career of one man are so intimately connected with the great scheme of the years 1719 and 1720, that a history of the Mississippi madness can have no fitter introduction than a sketch of the life of its great author John Law. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
The personal character and career of one man are so intimately connected with the great scheme of the years 1719 and 1720, that a history of the Mississippi madness can have no fitter introduction than a sketch of the life of its great author John Law. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
For a book so old, Extraordinary Popular Delusions is still a very easy read (untranslated French aside) and very relevant to the modern day. It traces the origins of "animal magnetism" for example, still around as magnet therapy bracelets and so on, and an excellent example of the conditions which lead people to believe the bizarre. The section on the Alchymists is a real highlight: a history of the field told through potted biographies of its practitioners, covering both the real and legendary aspects of their lives and characters.
The tone is dryly witty with a subtle sarcasm, and once you push through the unengaging subject matter of the opening three chapters (the first two covering fairly similar financial schemes, and the third the "Tulipomania") it's an amazingly compulsive read.
The tone is dryly witty with a subtle sarcasm, and once you push through the unengaging subject matter of the opening three chapters (the first two covering fairly similar financial schemes, and the third the "Tulipomania") it's an amazingly compulsive read.
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is an entertaining review of a number of popular crazes that occupied the minds of the English during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Some of its subjects are well known but others, like the passion for the catchphrase "What a shocking bad hat!", now long forgotten. Although around a hundred years old this book's continuing relevance is demonstrated almost daily by the proliferation of fads, crazes and popular delusions in our own time. It is pleasing to reflect that in another century such modern preoccupations as crop circles, alien abductions and satanic ritual abuse will appear as bizarre and absurd as duelling, tulipomania and the South Sea Bubble do now.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
First, ignore the review that says 'This edition only contains extracts on John Law, the South Sea Bubble, and the Tulip mania in the Netherlands...'. That review relates to a different edition. This paperback edition contains all the sections referred to in the summary. The content is wide ranging, from financial manias to the Crusades, witch trials, poisonings and so on, so it's a fascinating selection. My only warning would be that the book was written nearly 200 years ago, so the language and style is a bit archaic nowadays. The author is prone to 19th century meandering thoughts on the nature of man and his behaviour, when you just want him to get on with telling the story! Well worth a try though.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Small Volume, Big Lessons
This is an extract from the book of the same name and covers three episodes: the Mississippi Scheme, The South Sea Bubble and Tulipomania. Read more
Published 10 months ago by demola
GOOD READ
This book goes to show that fads are not a modern thing and have been going on for hundreds of years.A fascinating insight into the crazes of yesteryear
Published 18 months ago by kerrsy
Nice formatting but no illustrations.
You may as well go to Project Gutenberg and download the full text as a .mobi for free, the formatting of that is almost as good as this, and there are no illustrations in either... Read more
Published 18 months ago by I. Rawlings
Wordsworth Reference Series
The print font in the Wordsworth Reference Series paperback is so small it gives me a headache reading half a page. Read more
Published 19 months ago by martke
The Human Comedy
For those of a sceptical turn of mind,whose view of human affairs is even somewhat jaundiced,this book will appeal immensely. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Mr. T. D. Foster
should be read by everyone
This book should be given a read by everyone. Some of the crazes he writes about are boggling to the mind, it is hard to take it in that they happened at all. Read more
Published on 15 May 2010 by Larry Purcell
Same as it ever was. Sheeple havent changed much.
What a brilliant book! It is quite hard to put down as sometimes it feels a bit like reading a history of the PRESENT in the future. Read more
Published on 17 Dec 2009 by derestricted
Don't buy this edition!
This is a heavily abridged edition which excludes 13 of the original 16 chapters, including some mentioned in the very misleading product description.
Published on 16 Nov 2009 by Fintan
We are no different from our ancestors
I wanted to read this book to learn more about our current financial crisis. And I learned that if you think that the current financial crisis is an extraordinary event and our... Read more
Published on 15 Nov 2009 by Mariusz Skonieczny
Harriman House edition is a well-presented severe abridgement
The Harriman House edition is an abridgement, or to be more precise, an excerpt of the more juicy bits of the book. Read more
Published on 4 July 2008 by Too many books
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