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Extraordinary Popular Delusions Summary & Review: Step Aside When the Crowd Is Sure
Extraordinary Popular Delusions summary: Mackay’s 1841 map of tulips, Mississippi shares, and the South Sea Bubble — plus a 7-day plan to…
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Charles Mackay
"The reporter who mapped how crowds buy a story."
Charles Mackay (27 March 1814 – 24 December 1889) was a Scottish journalist, poet, and songwriter, remembered mainly for Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. He edited the Illustrated London News and spent his working life explaining public mood in print. The 1841 book, expanded in 1852, maps tulip contracts, John Law’s Mississippi scheme, the South Sea Bubble, and a long list of crazes outside markets.
1 book·Crowds, manias, and the stories money tells
Books by Charles Mackay
Our in-depth summaries and reviews of his work
Key Ideas & Recurring Themes
Crowds go mad together
A story plus social proof plus new buyers. Sense returns privately, one person at a time.
The prospectus nobody can explain
If the undertaking is of great advantage but nobody is to know what it is, you are the inventory.
Notable Quotes
"They go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."— Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
"Men, it has been well said, think in herds."— Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
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Book Author Charles Mackay
Extraordinary Popular Delusions Summary & Review: Step Aside When the Crowd Is Sure
Extraordinary Popular Delusions summary: Mackay’s 1841 map of tulips, Mississippi shares, and the South Sea Bubble — plus a 7-day plan to pause when a crowd is sure.