Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
The original field guide to bubbles, manias, and herd behavior.
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is a 19th-century survey of mass folly, from the Tulip mania and the South Sea Bubble to the Mississippi Scheme and other collective manias. Charles Mackay catalogs how rational individuals behave irrationally in crowds. It remains a foundational text on speculative bubbles and crowd psychology.
Founders learn to recognize hype cycles and herd behavior, in markets, in funding trends, and in their own industries. It teaches the value of skepticism when everyone is rushing toward the same shiny thing.
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