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Summary: One of the greatest books ever written on mass hysteria
Review: Though written in the mid-19th century, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions..." still rings true today. The almost irresistible lure of mass hysteria has shaped our world in more ways than we can imagine. McKay's book is not only a great work of scholarship, it is written with style and charm. A classic.
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Summary: This book saved me thousands of dollars and much pain...
Review: While this book is somewhat difficult reading, being written in Dickensian Olde English (and you certainly don't have to read all of it to get the point) it should be required reading for every college student. Enron employees, who sunk their entire life savings' into one stock, would've also benefited from a thorough reading of this. Luckily, if you're young and you haven't read this yet, you don't have to join the ranks of the 401k-less ninnies who bought into all the hype of the late nineties.If you are like most of us, you probably had a cube-mate who fashioned him/herself as a "Wall Street wizard" at some point in 1998; you probably had a good laugh as you watched an E*Trade commercial from around that era where the TV-addled couch potato chooses his stock picks based on what's being marketed to him on TV. Personally, I recall one example where a co-worker invested the entire contents of his children's college fund on a single stock purchase, bragging about his profits from said transaction to everyone! Never mind the fact that he could have very well left Johnny and Jenny putting themselves through the local community college and living at home; this was 1998, after all - the "New Economy" was going to transcend all of the limits that 'unprogressive' thinkers had ascribed to all earlier versions of the economy. The question is: are you going to believe the mucky-muck hack/establishment economist at _Barron's_, or learn lessons from history? This book is for those who prefer the latter. This book is really a classic in critical thinking. Having read this around age 19, I couldn't help but think that the "New Economy" was mostly a bunch of balderdash and that nothing can permanently transcend fundamental economic principles. In fact, the .com boom - undoubtedly epitomized by this very bookstore, (which at one time was worth about eight times the GNP of Norway - at least on paper), is far from the first example of various manias that have swept through the popular mind in the last few centuries. This book (or at least the chapter on Dutch tulip mania) should be required reading for everyone who thinks that they are going to take a weekend seminar and get a _Wall Street Journal_ subscription and somehow "beat the market." Anyone can learn how to read bar charts and the like, but this will teach you something much more important: human psychology. When you understand generally recurring historical patterns, you'll understand a lot. Perhaps it's at least refreshing to know that the silliness of the .com boom isn't without historical precedent. Also recommended: "The Alchemy of Finance" by George Soros (for those who think that the market "must always go back up", even as they are oblivious to say, the fact that businesses are eventually judged by their liquid worth at some point) and "The Crowd" by Gustave le Bon, another book on mass psychology written in an entertaining style.
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