Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds Paperback – October 22, 2013 Author: Charles MacKay | Language: English | ISBN:
1463740514 | Format: PDF, EPUB
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Review
As with any true classic, once it is read it is hard to imagine not having known of it--and there is the compulsion to recommend it to others. --
<A HREF=/exec/obidos/Author=Tobias%2C%20Andrew/${0}>Andrew TobiasAbout the Author
Charles Mackay (1841-1889) was born in Perth Scotland. His mother died shortly after his birth, and his father, who had been in turn a Lieutenant on a Royal Navy sloop (captured and imprisoned for four years in France) and then an Ensign in the 47th foot taking part in the ill-fated Walcheren Expedition where he contracted malaria, sent young Charles to live with a nurse in Woolwich in 1822.
After a couple of years’ education in Brussels from 1828-1830, he became a journalist and songwriter in London. He worked on The Morning Chronicle from1835-1844, when he was appointed Editor of The Glasgow Argus. His song The Good Time Coming sold 400,000 copies in 1846, the year that he was awarded his Doctorate of Literature by Glasgow University.
He was a friend of influential figures such as Charles Dickens and Henry Russell, and moved to London to work on The Illustrated London News in 1848, and he became Editor of it in 1852. He was a correspondent for The Times during the American Civil War, but thereafter concentrated on writing books.
Apart from Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, he is best remembered for his songs and his Dictionary of Lowland Scotch.
Direct download links available for Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds Paperback – October 22, 2013 Free PDF
- Paperback: 410 pages
- Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; Reprint edition (October 22, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1463740514
- ISBN-13: 978-1463740511
- Product Dimensions: 10 x 8 x 0.8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
This Kindle edition consists of two long volumes, published in 1852. It details various mass delusions and obsessions, varying from hair styles to the crusades to financial crises to the burning of witches - and much more.
I enjoyed this book immensely, despite its length, but found it to be unsettling. The details of each of the many events covered are different, but there is an underlying theme that should be a warning to modern man. The author points out that the madness that periodically breaks out among the masses would, hopefully, be less in the future. If only he knew that these follies would continue up to the present day.
Each of the events he described had the same pattern:
Firstly, some individual or small circle of individuals would make a claim. The purpose could be profit, vengeance, or superstition.
Secondly, some larger segment of society (such as the Church, stock jobbers, etc.) would proclaim a societal emergency or, even, a great opportunity.
Thirdly, the masses would adopt, unquestioningly and illogically, the truth of the original claim, often twisting the claim in a manner the originators would not have imagined or possibly approved.
Fourthly, more reasonable men or organizations would be shunned or punished as heretics for failing to accept the popular delusion.
Lastly, the folly would become so reprehensible or unsustainable that it would fade away, only (regrettably) to be replaced by another.
In our times, we consider ourselves modern and rational. Many readers might look on the examples described in this book to be so absurd as to irrelevant to our times. However, our follies follow the same pattern - sometimes more subtle but often just as costly and often more deadly.
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