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Nipples Ultra's avatar

"Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds" was written in 1849. The prose is fairly flat and modern, not florid like you would expect from an old book.

The first section is stories of a few bubbles which had already happened at that time. They give a vivid sense of what it is like to live through a bubble. It's a very appropriate book for this moment.

This edition is all 700 pages: bubbles, witch hunts, all 8 Crusades, alchemy, various cults. There are other short editions with only the bubble reports.

https://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Popular-Delusions-Madness-Crowds/dp/1539849589/

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Margin of Sanity's avatar

I have the hard-copy! Its what inspired me to write the "John Law" piece and begin the Frenzy series

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Nipples Ultra's avatar

Yeah, mine is somewhere in my boxes. Apparently, the author got suckered into the early 1800s British railroad boom/bust. Go figure.

It includes this urban legend: some Parisian aristo who heard the price of John Law's French bonds was X, and sent his trusted servant to cash in his bonds. By the time the servant made it to the office, the price was 2X. The servant bought 2 carriages full of gold, delivered one to his boss, and hightailed it to Switzerland with the other.

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Margin of Sanity's avatar

Ha!!! Man I love that. What a time when you needed a horse to move money.

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