The Delusions Of Crowds

The Delusions of Crowds is an ambitious and compelling work of history chronicling dramatic religious and financial mass manias in Western culture over the past 500 years. As Bernstein observes, if we can absorb the history and biology of mass delusion, we can more readily recognize its danger in our own time. From the Anabaptist Madness in Europe in the 1530s to 19th century Millerism in the U.S. to ISIS today; from John Law's speculations for the nascent Bank of France in the early 1700s to the Enron scandal and dot com bubbles of the early 2000s, Bernstein incisively investigates human behavior and the wide ranging and dangerous repercussions of mass mania. Bernstein's previous book on global commerce, A Splendid Exchange, received glowing reviews and was selected as one of the best books of the year by the Economist and the Financial Times. It was the winner of the 800-CEO-Read Business Book Award for Globalization and a finalist for the Goldman Sachs Best Business Book. It has sold more than 50,000 copies in all formats. Bernstein is an elegant, fluid writer. The sections on the psychology and biology behind human mass irrationality are erudite but still easily accessible, and the chronicles of group madness are page-turning. Bernstein layers in the latest scientific and psychological research to explain why people go mad in groups, which gives his book deep authority. The Delusions of Crowds will appeal to readers of big idea history, such as Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, and of books by the likes of Yuval Noah Harari and Steven Pinker. Bernstein's views on the influence of End-Times belief in America's military and politics are alarming, to say the least, mirroring attitudes in Israel and the Middle East. The fervency of such belief is a potentially very dangerous spark. Bernstein retells well-known stories like the South Sea Bubble and 1929 Wall Street crash from new angles, making them fresh; for example, his focal point for the 1929 crash is Sunshine Charlie Mitchell, who sold gullible investors millions of ultimately worthless shares, and was brought down by a little known lawyer named Ferdinand Pecora. The Delusions of Crowds includes diagrams and maps running throughout the text as well as a color insert section.