Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

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Barnes & Noble Publishing, 12 ago 2004 - 656 pagine
Today, as in the time of the South Sea Bubble, human nature is drawn like a moth to flame by the speculative fads of the marketplace. The excitement of new glamour issues in electronics or medical technology, the general euphoria over a rising market; these lure even many experienced investors. Their optimism overcomes their better judgment. They abandon critical analysis of the investment's fundamental value. Like gamblers in a casino they play against the odds, paying inflated prices and dreaming of quick profit.? ? from the foreword by John Marks Templeton Mackay's classic, first published in 1841, studies the psychology of crowds and mass mania throughout history, including 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 spring from valid ideas of 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. Time and again we can avoid disastrous pitfalls and learn to profit by seeing the ways that history repeats itself. Fascinating, mesmerizing, strikingly strange, and amazingly shrewd, this book will never be forgotten and cannot be ignored.

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Sommario

MONEY MANIATHE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME
1
THE SOUTHSEA BUBBLE
38
THE TULIPOMANIA
73
THE ALCHYMISTS
81
MODERN PROPHECIES
209
FORTUNETELLING
229
THE MAGNETISERS
248
INFLUENCE OF POLITICS AND RELIGION ON THE HAIR AND BEARD
281
THE SLOW POISONERS
458
HAUNTED HOUSES
481
POPULAR FOLLIES OF GREAT CITIES
502
POPULAR ADMIRATION OF GREAT THIEVES
513
DUELS AND ORDEALS
524
RELICS
563
ENDNOTES
570
INDEX
586

THE CRUSADES
288
THE WITCH MANIA
374
SUGGESTED READING
609
Copyright

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