Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds Vol 1 and 2
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds Vol 1 and 2
Financier Bernard Baruch credited the lessons he learned from Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds with his decision to sell all his stock ahead of the financial crash of 1929.
Financial writer Michael Lewis includes the financial mania chapters in his book The Price of Everything as one of the six great works of economics, along with writings by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, Thorstein Veblen, and John Maynard Keynes.
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is a popular history of popular folly by Charles Mackay, first published in 1841. The book chronicles its targets in three parts: “National Delusions”, “Peculiar Follies”, and “Philosophical Delusions”.
We all remember the Dot Com boom and bust of the 2001 but did you know the same thing happened in Holland with tulips in 1637. Among the financial manias described by Mackay is the Dutch tulip mania of the early seventeenth century. Tulip mania started in 1637 when tulips and tulip bulbs suddenly became fashionable in Holland. Everyone who was anyone had to own tulip bulbs The price of the bulbs went from a few coins and went up and up. Every one scrambled to own tulips the price soared until on tulip bulb was worth the price of a mansion. And then suddenly overnight the price dropped to nothing.
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