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Summary: A fascinating journey into the mind of humanity
Review: "Evian" is "naive" spelled backwards. I pay $0.88 per 1000 liters for water at my house tap. (And I love the taste!)($3.33/1000 gallons, in case you are not yet metrified.) Many pay a 1000 times this price for Evian. This just proves that naming, packaging and imaging are everything when selling to the "general public".Given this, the book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Maddness of Crowds" by Charles MacKay describes the major historical crowd delusions up to 1841 when the book was first published. The forward by Bernard Baruch, written in 1932, is alone worth the price of the book. MacKay does not analize crowd psychcology nor attempt to explain why these events occurred - so don't look here for predictions of the next stock market crash. The events are revealed from a purely historical perspective and in great detail. Overall the book is a fascinating journey into the mind of humanity.
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Summary: Y2K
Review: Add the Y2K mania to the list of madness found in this book. A great book. Very interesting, even more so when you realize that this book was originally printed in the 19th century.
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Summary: Boring and Overrated
Review: After hearing about this book for a long time, I recently read it. Mackay's book consists of one anecdote after another...for more than 700 pages. It offers very little in the way of analysis and explanations. If you like that kind of book, this one is for you. I found this book boring and very overrated. I suggest that you skim a copy of this book before you buy it. After skimming it and getting a feel for what it contains, the chances are good you won't bother to buy it.
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Summary: The Antithesis of Religious Reverence
Review: Although the Bible teaches that where more than one person gathers, (supposedly in His name), the recognition of the more likely result is that where more than two persons is a crowd for the simple reason that the topic of God and reverence becomes non-existant, and the more persons added, the less godly the environment becomes, because people have not heeded those Biblical instructions, or because they prefer not to have God in their midst in daily life, but prefer the concept of God in their private and personal thoughts only where He will not be subject to being drawn and quartered as portrayed by the Passion of Christ film because of His supposed dominance that threatens the masses, and upsets the balance of power that resides in that narrow, and fragile utilitarian balance of life cultivated. It may well be a lesson of government and of men that if they prefer to have laws rather than men govern them, they need to leave God out of the mix, since God is perceived differently by so many different individuals. Where God exists, there need be no war and little conflict, we are told from the earliest childhood because of the love that God is supposed to bring into life, and daily living. The reality, however, is far from that truth. Where crowds gather, God is much more likely to be abandoned, and the fact that "under God" is allowed to remain in the Pledge of Allegiance and on currency reflects only the reminder that God does exist for the more moral souls who consider that Biblical text a degree of authority in their lives as spiritual guidance. The fact that its presence on currency does not stop the fraud among men that appears to go unabated, appears irrelevant, but would under normal circumstances indicate that its presence is blasphemous for all practical considerations and reflections, a violation of the First Commandment itself since few are thinking about God when that currency is transmitted or collected. Perhaps, this was the complusion that induced Jesus to overturn the temple tables among the moneychangers, and perhaps why God insisted that he be crucified to show the extreme that results when people do not have the concept of total love, or God, in their hearts as they proceed with daily life that always contains the option and the opportunity to show love and mercy, rather than greed and resentment of others. The conclusion is that where crowds gather, dignity nearly always goes away, and why protests are so very effective in challenging attitudes. We may have learned that from the crucifixion as well, and learned it too well since throughout history, there appears to have been numerous repetitions of the event in the form of the witch trials, etc. Of course, any excuse will do; with the exception of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi, there have been very few times when crowds were able to gather in respect, in love, and without protest of some sort or another. Modern man thrives upon such events to bring the pressure of negative advertising to campaigns though to be important, yet God is nowhere to be found in those events, presumably, for their effectiveness in creating the dissent that becomes the overwhelming purpose of such gatherings. We know this from the civil rights events that pitted man against nature, as well as man against man. To the extent that man is capable of, and led to perform crowd gatherings in the interests of peace, and successfully, there is no greater gift to mankind, whoever is responsible for the giving. Judging from history, it appears a rare event, indeed, that is able to accomplish so much from so diverse a people as those who exist upon the earth, and try to live together as one. There could be no more real example of schizophrenia than this result that turns man into beast, rather than to honor him as the human he has been planned and challenged to be.
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Summary: For history buffs
Review: An interesting book for history buffs. For those interested in the history of financial manias, only the first three chapters are of interest. If you are not a history buff, even these chapters are much too detailed.
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Summary: Severely abridged edition
Review: Be aware that the edition published by Harriman House ONLY contains the chapters relating to economics, so you only get probably 1/7 of the original book...
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Summary: An important, engaging, shrewd historical treatise.
Review: Charles Mackay's highly recommended Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds was first published in 1841 and studies the psychology of crowds and mass mania throughout history. Mackay included 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 sprang from valid ideas and 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. 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.
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Summary: Great history, reminder for society
Review: Despite the age of this book, it continues to be current as ever, especially after the dot-com bubble. In different chapters, the author treats separate delusions which, at first sight, the reaction is that it could not happen today, until we see all that does in fact go on in the world. I found the South Sea Bubble and the Dutch Tulipmania the two most outstanding cases. The analysis, given its dated nature, serves more as an image of historical thought. I would recommend one to read the chapter on Social Proof in CIaldini's Influence book, it goes into many of the issues that set off the manias.
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Summary: There is nothing new under the sun
Review: Especially of interest in this volume is the history of the Mississippi scheme. Read and compare it to the events of the so-called Whitewater scandal, when Arkansas governor Bill Clinton lost his shirt in land speculation, and tell me there's anything new under the sun.
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Summary: A must-have book
Review: Goodness knows how many times this book has been reprinted, but it is a classic, it recounts many of the strange and popular freakish and delusional things that crowds have got up to over history. Tulip-mania, witch-hunts, fortune-telling, south-seas bubble. Its fun, fascinating and easy to dip into for a quick read as each chapter is really independent of the others. I re-read parts of this recently having just read Elaine Showalter's very controversial recent book "Hystories". Showalter's book is as much about modern psychological 'hysteria's' (as she calls them) - things like Recovered Memory Syndrome, and Ritual Abuse accusations which she seems to liken very much to popularist crowd behaviour . And while you may or not agree with her, I think it is interesting to read her book after this one. Still if you just want a bit of light read, then this book is definitely right up there - and it is always so much more fun and comfortable to be able to laugh gently at the patent ignorance of these poor deluded historical crowds!
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