Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions 1 by Charles MackayMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Volume I of Charles Mackay's epic work of pop psychology from the early 19th Century features most saliently economic bubbles and financial manias such as the South Sea Company bubble of 1711–1720, the Mississippi Company bubble of 1719–1720, and (famously) 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. 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, 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. But, I think Mackay's colorful is maybe fanciful telling has forever cast the shape of this frenzied footnote to Dutch history.
This compendium also feels very modern for scoffing at relic reverence and the chancey justice of Duels and Ordeals.
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