Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (Library of Essential Reading Series)

FROM OUR EDITORS

Particularly when it comes to foibles and follies, human beings seem destined to repeat their mistakes. History is filled with hundreds of examples of mass mania and delusion, from haunted house scares and preposterous prophecies to the frightening excesses of witch hunts and the Crusades. This 19th-century treatise documents a number of classic scams and investment schemes gone awry, including: * The Mississippi Scheme, a speculation scheme that swept 18th-century France * The South Sea Bubble, an investment plan that bankrupted thousands of people in England * Tulipmania, the Dutch flower frenzy that redefined European garden styles while making and breaking huge fortunes. Also chronicled are such fads and delusions as Alchemy, necromancy, Mesmerism, and trafficking in holy relics, as well as the cult of personality that glorified many common thieves, including Robin Hood, Claude Duval, Dick Turpin, and Jack Sheppard. This volume includes facsimile title pages & b&w illustrations fro

ANNOTATION

Originally published in 1841, this is a serious but frequently hilarious study of mass madness, crowd behavior, and human folly.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is a landmark study of crowd psychology and mass mania and a singular casebook of human folly throughout the ages. Chronicled here are accounts of swindles, schemes, and scams on a grand scale. Other chapters deal with fads and delusions that have sprung from ideas, beliefs, and causes that still have champions today: the prophecies of Nostradamus, the coming of comets and Judgment Day, the Rosicrucians, and astrology. The book also surveys controversial people and movements of the past: necromancy, Father Hell and Magnetism, Anthony Mesmer and Mesmerism, the Crusades, sorcery and the burning of witches, not to mention the popularity of murder by slow poisoning.