Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Harriman House Classics edition
Author Charles Mackay
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Subject Crowd psychology, economic bubbles, history
Genre non-fiction
Publisher Richard Bentley, London
Publication date
1841
Media type Print
Pope Urban II advocating the First Crusade, one of Mackay's subjects
A satirical "Bubble card"
An Alchemist
"Witch Hunter", Matthew Hopkins
The Cock Lane "ghost"

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is a history of popular folly by Scottish journalist Charles Mackay, first published in 1841.[1] The book chronicles its subjects in three parts: "National Delusions", "Peculiar Follies", and "Philosophical Delusions". MacKay was an accomplished teller of stories, though he wrote in a journalistic and somewhat sensational style.

The subjects of Mackay's debunking include alchemy, crusades, duels, economic bubbles, fortune-telling, haunted houses, the influence of politics and religion on the shapes of beards and hair, magnetisers (influence of imagination in curing disease), murder through poisoning, prophecies, popular admiration of great thieves, popular follies of great cities, and relics. Present-day writers on economics, such as Michael Lewis and Andrew Tobias, laud the three chapters on economic bubbles.[2] Scientist and astronomer Carl Sagan mentioned the book in his own discussion about pseudoscience, popular delusions, and hoaxes.[3]

In later editions, Mackay added a footnote referencing the Railway Mania of the 1840s as another "popular delusion" which was at least as important as the South Sea Bubble. Mathematician Andrew Odlyzko has pointed out, in a published lecture, that Mackay himself played a role in this economic bubble; as leader writer in the Glasgow Argus, Mackay wrote on 2 October 1845: "There is no reason whatever to fear a crash".[4][5]

Volume I

Economic bubbles

Among the bubbles or financial manias described by Mackay are the South Sea Company bubble of 17111720, the Mississippi Company bubble of 17191720, and the Dutch tulip mania of the early seventeenth century. According to Mackay, during this bubble, speculators from all walks of life bought and sold tulip bulbs and even futures contracts on them. Allegedly, some tulip bulb varieties briefly became the most expensive objects in the world during 1637.[6] Mackay's accounts are enlivened by colorful, comedic anecdotes, such as the Parisian hunchback who supposedly profited by renting out his hump as a writing desk during the height of the mania surrounding the Mississippi Company.

Two modern researchers, Peter Garber and Anne Goldgar, independently conclude that Mackay greatly exaggerated the scale and effects of the Tulip bubble,[7] and Mike Dash, in his modern popular history of the alleged bubble, notes that he believes the importance and extent of the tulip mania were overstated.[8]

Alchemists

See also: Alchemy

The section on alchemysts focuses primarily on efforts to turn base metals into gold. Mackay notes that many of these practitioners were themselves deluded, convinced that these feats could be performed if they discovered the correct old recipe or stumbled upon the right combination of ingredients. Although alchemists gained money from their sponsors, mainly noblemen, he notes that the belief in alchemy by sponsors could be hazardous to its practitioners, as it wasn't rare for an unscrupulous noble to imprison a supposed alchemist until he could produce gold.

Other chapters

Volume II

Crusades

See also: Crusades

Mackay describes the history of the Crusades as a kind of mania of the Middle Ages, precipitated by the pilgrimages of Europeans to the Holy lands. Mackay is generally unsympathetic to the Crusaders, whom he compares unfavourably to the superior civilisation of Asia: "Europe expended millions of her treasures, and the blood of two millions of her children; and a handful of quarrelsome knights retained possession of Palestine for about one hundred years!"

Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) quotes part of the introduction to this section: "History in its solemn page informs us that the crusaders were but ignorant and savage men, that their motives were those of bigotry unmitigated, and that their pathway was one of blood and tears."[9]

Witch mania

Witch trials in 16th- and 17th-century Western Europe are the primary focus of the "Witch Mania" section of the book, which asserts that this was a time when ill fortune was likely to be attributed to supernatural causes. Mackay notes that many of these cases were initiated as a way of settling scores among neighbors or associates, and that extremely low standards of evidence were applied to most of these trials. Mackay claims that "thousands upon thousands" of people were executed as witches over two and a half centuries, with the largest numbers killed in Germany and Spain.

Other chapters

Influence and modern responses

The book remains in print, and writers continue to discuss its influence, particularly the section on financial bubbles. (See Goldsmith and Lewis, below.)

Quotations

See also

References

Notes

  1. Mackay, Charles (1841). Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds I (1 ed.). London: Richard Bentley. Retrieved 29 April 2015.Mackay, Charles (1841). Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds II (1 ed.). London: Richard Bentley. Retrieved 29 April 2015.Mackay, Charles (1841). Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds III (1 ed.). London: Richard Bentley. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
  2. 1 2 Lewis, Michael (2008). The Real Price of Everything.
  3. Sagan, Carl (1995). The Demon-Haunted World.
  4. MacKay, Charles (1 December 2008). Extraordinary Popular Delusions, the Money Mania: The Mississippi Scheme, the South-sea Bubble, & the Tulipomania. Cosimo, Inc. p. 88. ISBN 978-1-60520-547-2. Retrieved 8 June 2013.
  5. Odyyzko, Andrew (2012). Charles Mackay’s own extraordinary popular delusions and the Railway Mania (PDF). p. 2.
  6. "Tulips". library.wur.nl.
  7. Garber, Peter M. (2001). Famous First Bubbles.
  8. Dash, Mike (2001). Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused.
  9. Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. (1971). Slaughterhouse Five.
  10. Baruch, Bernard (1957). My Own Story. New York: Henry Holt. pp. 242–245.
  11. Ohayon, Albert. "John Law and the Mississippi Bubble: The Madness of Crowds". NFB.ca Blog. National Film Board of Canada. Retrieved 22 June 2011.
  12. "China Bubble Mania". Forbes. 2007-05-30. Retrieved 2009-10-30.
  13. Gaiman, Neil (1991). The Sandman Vol. 3: Dream Country.
  14. "The Madness of Crowds, Past and Present". BusinessWeek. Retrieved 2009-10-01.
  15. "The books cashing in on the crash". The Independent (London). 2009-11-20. Retrieved 2009-11-23.
  16. Streitfeld, David; and Healy, Jack (2009-04-29). "Phoenix Leads the Way Down in Home Prices". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-11-23.
  17. Delasantellis, Julian (2007-03-16). "The subprime dominoes in motion". Asia Times. Retrieved 2010-11-15.
  18. "To be honest, it's totally random". New Statesman. Retrieved 2009-10-12.
  19. Surowiecki, James (2004). The Wisdom of Crowds.

Bibliography

External links

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