The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups by Bernstein, William J.
The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups by Bernstein, William J.

The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

From the award-winning author of A Splendid Exchange, a fascinating new history of financial and religious mass...
$90.60 AUD
$90.60 AUD
SKU: 9780802157096
Product Type: Books
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Author: William J. Bernstein
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
Subtotal: $90.60
The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups by Bernstein, William J.

The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

$90.60
The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups by Bernstein, William J.

The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups

$90.60
Author: William J. Bernstein
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
Description

From the award-winning author of A Splendid Exchange, a fascinating new history of financial and religious mass manias over the past five centuries

"We are the apes who tell stories," writes William Bernstein. "And no matter how misleading the narrative, if it is compelling enough it will nearly always trump the facts." As Bernstein shows in his eloquent and persuasive new book, The Delusions of Crowds, throughout human history compelling stories have catalyzed the spread of contagious narratives through susceptible groups--with enormous, often disastrous, consequences.

Inspired by Charles Mackay's 19th-century classic Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, 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 polarized America; 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 colorful 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: for example, belief in dispensationalist End-Times has over decades profoundly affected U.S. Middle East policy. Bernstein observes that if we can absorb the history and biology of mass delusion, we can recognize it more readily in our own time, and avoid its frequently dire impact.



Author: William J. Bernstein
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Published: 02/23/2021
Pages: 576
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.70lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 1.70d
ISBN: 9780802157096


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 11/15/2020
Publishers Weekly 11/23/2020

About the Author
William J. Bernstein is a neurologist, financial theorist, and historian whose books include A Splendid Exchange, Masters of the Word, The Birth of Plenty, and The Four Pillars of Investing. He is the co-founder of the investment management firm Efficient Frontier Advisors, and has written for publications including the Wall Street Journal and Money magazine. He was the winner of the 2017 James R. Vertin Award from CFA Institute. He lives in Oregon.
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