1993 Book Extraordinary Popular Delusions by Charles Mackay Hardcover

1993 Book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions" by Charles Mackay, LLD

The classic "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds"

Cloth hardcover book, with dust jacket

Appears to be unread, it looks like it was put on the shelf unopened. The only damage I can find is a scratch on the back of the dust cover and dust smudges on the bottom of some pages.

Published in 1993 by Barnes and Noble Books, New York

ISBN 1-56619-169-6

724 pages, including the index

8¼ by 56¾ inches (and 2½ inches thick)

This edition has facsimile title pages and reproductions of original illustrations from the editions of 1841 and 1852.

"This landmark study of crowd psychology and mass mania throughout history includes accounts of classic scams, grand-scale madnesses and decptions such as the Mississippi Scheme that swept France in 1720; the South Sea Bubble that ruined thousands in England at the same time; the Tulipmania of Holland, when fortunes were made and lost on single tulip bulbs. 

"Other chapters deal with fads and delusions that often spring from valid ideas or causes --- many of which still have their followers today: Alchemy and the Philosopher's Stone, the Prophecies of Nostradamus, the Coming of Comets and Judgement Day, the Rosecrucians and Astrology.  Our past also includes highly consequential movements such as Necromancy, Father Hell and Magnetism, Anthony Mesmer and Mesmerism, the Crusades, the Influence of Politics and Religion on the Hair and Beard, Sorcery and the Burning of Witches, the Traffic in Relics, the Popularity of Murder by Slow Poisoning and the Hero-Worship of Common Thieves.

"Fascinating, mesmerizing, strikingly strange and amazing shrewd, this book will never be forgotten and cannot be ignored."