The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups (Main)

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Synopsis
Inspired by Charles Mackay's 19th-century classic Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, William Bernstein engages with mass delusion with the same curiosity and passion, but armed with the latest scientific research that explains the biological, evolutionary and psychosocial roots of human irrationality. Bernstein tells the stories of dramatic religious and financial mania in western society over the last 500 years - from the Anabaptist Madness that afflicted the Low Countries in the 1530s to the dangerous end-times beliefs that animate ISIS and pervade today's polarised nations; and from the South Sea Bubble to the Enron scandal and dot com bubbles of recent years. Through Bernstein's supple prose, the participants are as colourful as their motivation, invariably 'the desire to improve one's well-being in this life or the next.'As revealing about human nature as they are historically significant, Bernstein's chronicles reveal the huge cost and alarming implications of mass mania as he observes that if we can absorb the history and biology of mass delusion, we can recognise it more readily in our own time and avoid its frequently dire impact.
Copyright:
2021

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:
9781611858877
Related ISBNs:
9781611854435
Publisher:
Atlantic Books
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
William J. Bernstein
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Nonfiction, Religion and Spirituality, Psychology, Social Studies, Sociology
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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