What do you think?
Rate this book
The Art of Folly
A book about human fads, fashions, and folly, the author is again "on the trail of stupidity."
259 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1961
1 person is currently reading
17 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 4, 2025
…nemojte dosljedno ni lagati ni govoriti istinu.
February 25, 2019
Paul Tabori takes a mostly humorous look at humanity's fads, fashions and follies. He considers a fad to be a "whim" for which exaggerated zeal is created. Fads are ephemeral and unpremeditated whereas fashions can be directed and planned, they are imposed and cyclic. He likens fads to comets and likens fashions to planets.
The fads he discusses are: duelling, suicide, economic bubbles (Tulip Mania, the South Sea Bubble etc, in a chapter that seems to owe a lot to Charles Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds as audio book), medical quackery, whims of kings and finishing with Twentieth Century popular fads and crazes such as flagpole sitting, zoot suits, nudists, and Tshirts with slogans.
Duelling lasted many centuries so you have to take a very long historical view to see it as a fad. It is even more dubious to classify suicide as a fad. Revisionists are now claiming that the tulip mania wasn't as devastating as usually claimed.
The fashions he covers include underwear and cosmetics, the (male) fashion designers, the (female) queens of fashion, improvised poetry (which sounds more like a fad, though it has its modern counterpart in rapping), political revolutions, curses and swear-words, names.
In the section on follies, he covers spiritualism, astrology, communism (probably the longest chapter) and a chapter on the foolishness of not being anti-communist.
Some chapters are funnier than others and some chapters don't seem to fit with the section they are in. While there are occasional digs at communists in the early chapters, Tabori's politics are on full show at the end of the book.
The fads he discusses are: duelling, suicide, economic bubbles (Tulip Mania, the South Sea Bubble etc, in a chapter that seems to owe a lot to Charles Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds as audio book), medical quackery, whims of kings and finishing with Twentieth Century popular fads and crazes such as flagpole sitting, zoot suits, nudists, and Tshirts with slogans.
Duelling lasted many centuries so you have to take a very long historical view to see it as a fad. It is even more dubious to classify suicide as a fad. Revisionists are now claiming that the tulip mania wasn't as devastating as usually claimed.
The fashions he covers include underwear and cosmetics, the (male) fashion designers, the (female) queens of fashion, improvised poetry (which sounds more like a fad, though it has its modern counterpart in rapping), political revolutions, curses and swear-words, names.
In the section on follies, he covers spiritualism, astrology, communism (probably the longest chapter) and a chapter on the foolishness of not being anti-communist.
Some chapters are funnier than others and some chapters don't seem to fit with the section they are in. While there are occasional digs at communists in the early chapters, Tabori's politics are on full show at the end of the book.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews