BOOKS



Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.

Charles Mackay, L.L.D.

ISBN 0-517-53919-5

First published in 1841


One of the great lessons of history is that people are pretty much the same in every era. Here is a compendium of the foolishness, greed, and stupidity of that darn hu-man race.

Some of the highlights include:

Popular Follies of Great Cities; Here we are treated to the fads of phrases that visited the cities of the early 1800.
" Walk where we will, we cannot help hearing from every side a phrase repeated with delight, and received with laughter, by men with hard hands and dirty faces, by saucy butcher-lads and errand-boys, by loose women, ...and idle fellows who loiter at the corners of streets. No one utters this phrase without producing a laugh from all within hearing. It seems applicable to every circumstance, and is the universal answer to every question...it throws a dash of fun and frolicsomeness over the existence of squalid poverty and ill-requited labor, London is a peculiarly fertile in this sort of phrases , no one knows in what spot, and pervade the whole population in a few hours, no one knows how. "

Some of the utterances that we are introduced to are: "What a shocking bad hat." "There he goes with his eye out." And has your mother sold her mangle."

Of particular interest in these days of greed and selfishness are the chapters on "The Mississippi scheme" and "The south-sea bubble." Feeding frenzies in which large amounts of paper stock changed hands at huge prices to the ultimate ruin of all.

Will there be a re-playing with all of this wild money being thrown at the Internet?

You can also read of the story of Tulipomania. The sudden desirability of rare tulips, the speculation, the crash.

Also of interest is the chapter on the Crusades including the children's crusades.




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