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Ponzi Schemes, Invaders from Mars & More Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds
The perfect follow-up to Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds--originally published in 1841 and still selling strong in paperback--this is an all-new compendium of bizarre incidents and deluded behavior in history and in our own time.
- GenresHistory
437 pages, Paperback
First published August 25, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 15, 2009
"Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" was an extremely popular analysis of group stupidity written by Charles Mackay in 1841. What subject could be more appealing? This updating of the classic includes old craziness (e.g. tulipomania) along with new craziness (e.g. the cultural suicide of the Xhosa).
March 8, 2024
Some sections were definitely more interesting than others, but overall, worth reading.
May 30, 2015
This is a worthy follow up to Charles MacKay's 'Popular Delusions' from 1841. As I have recently read that book, quickly followed by Tulipomania by Mike Dash, I was in the mood for this more modern approach to similar material.
The author follows pretty much the same approach as the original. He starts off covering some financial manias, in this case Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, the Florida Land Boom as well as taking another look at the Tulipomania of 17th Century Netherlands.
The author mostly concentrates on 20th Century manias, though some of the exceptions are the 'Destruction of the Xhosas' together with a brief description of several Cargo cults and a chapter on Dowsing.
Some of the more interesting chapters for me were the financial chapters at the beginning, the ones on the Jonestown cult, Perpetual motion, Musical Madness and the 'Invaders from Mars'.
In following MacKay's original scheme this book shares similar successes and failures as the original. The benefits are that the book is easy to read and very interesting, introducing the reader to topics that are either new or little known. The downside is that each chapter barely scrapes the surface of the topic (though I am tempted to see this as a benefit as it encourages further investigation).
As with MacKay's book the choice of topics is highly personal. MacKay chose to spend a lot of time on Alchemy for example, which I found quite dull. Bulgatz has a chapter on dowsing which I also found quite dull (maybe a chapter on homeopathy would have been better), two chapters on lotteries and 'soccer' which didn't really seem to belong in the book in my opinion and the final chapter on War which I thought was just tagged on the end as it just consists of repeating the points that war is often treated as a glorified fist-fight in the media and that political cartoonists depict the opposition in racially derogatory caricatures.
Still, as with MacKay's original it is a (flawed) classic and I would thoroughly recommend this to anyone remotely interested in the subject matter. The title describes the book perfectly...enjoy!!
The author follows pretty much the same approach as the original. He starts off covering some financial manias, in this case Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, the Florida Land Boom as well as taking another look at the Tulipomania of 17th Century Netherlands.
The author mostly concentrates on 20th Century manias, though some of the exceptions are the 'Destruction of the Xhosas' together with a brief description of several Cargo cults and a chapter on Dowsing.
Some of the more interesting chapters for me were the financial chapters at the beginning, the ones on the Jonestown cult, Perpetual motion, Musical Madness and the 'Invaders from Mars'.
In following MacKay's original scheme this book shares similar successes and failures as the original. The benefits are that the book is easy to read and very interesting, introducing the reader to topics that are either new or little known. The downside is that each chapter barely scrapes the surface of the topic (though I am tempted to see this as a benefit as it encourages further investigation).
As with MacKay's book the choice of topics is highly personal. MacKay chose to spend a lot of time on Alchemy for example, which I found quite dull. Bulgatz has a chapter on dowsing which I also found quite dull (maybe a chapter on homeopathy would have been better), two chapters on lotteries and 'soccer' which didn't really seem to belong in the book in my opinion and the final chapter on War which I thought was just tagged on the end as it just consists of repeating the points that war is often treated as a glorified fist-fight in the media and that political cartoonists depict the opposition in racially derogatory caricatures.
Still, as with MacKay's original it is a (flawed) classic and I would thoroughly recommend this to anyone remotely interested in the subject matter. The title describes the book perfectly...enjoy!!
March 9, 2013
A rag tag collection of various human follies and irrational behaviors - Historical context and a colorful language made it very easy to follow and grasp Examples of tulip mania Ponzi schemes Fantical followings etc
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews