This Day in History: Scottish writer Charles Mackay was born on this day (March 27) in 1814. Mackay is best known for writing Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is an early study of crowd psychology published in 1841 under the title Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions. The book was published in three volumes: "National Delusions", "Peculiar Follies", and "Philosophical Delusions".
The subjects in Mackay's work include alchemy, crusades, duels, economic bubbles, fortune-telling, haunted houses, the Drummer of Tedworth, the influence of politics and religion on the shapes of beards and hair, magnetisers (influence of imagination in curing disease), murder through poisoning, prophecies, popular admiration of great thieves, popular follies of great cities, and relics. Present-day writers on economics, such as Michael Lewis and Andrew Tobias, extol the three chapters on economic bubbles, which is probably the most talked about section of these volumes. The Tulipmania is perhaps the most popular topic.
"In 1600, in the garden of a nobleman, a traveling gentleman saw a rare, exotic flower — a tulip. Impressed by its unique beauty, he sent bulbs to Amsterdam, where their popularity caught on. The rare flower became a fad among gentlemen, and eventually, '…it was deemed to be in bad taste for any man of fortune to be without a collection of them.' The mania grew until it affected every cavity of society. In 1636, a wealthy trader would paid half his fortune for a single bulb. Tulip futures appeared on the European stock exchanges. Speculators moved in, making fortunes when prices rose, buying again when prices fell. Everyone, from nobles to chimney sweeps, dabbled in tulips. There was no reason for it. It was a pure popular delusion." Source
Mackay describes the Crusades as a kind of mania of the Middle Ages, precipitated by the pilgrimages of Europeans to the Holy Land. Mackay says of the Crusades: "Europe expended millions of her treasures, and the blood of two millions of her children; and a handful of quarrelsome knights retained possession of Palestine for about one hundred years!"
Witch trials in 16th and 17th-century Europe are the primary focus of the "Witch Mania" section of the book, which asserts that this was a time when ill fortune was likely to be attributed to supernatural causes. Mackay notes that many of these cases were initiated as a way of settling scores among neighbors or associates, and that extremely low standards of evidence were applied to most of these trials. Mackay claims that "thousands upon thousands" of people were executed as witches over two and a half centuries, with the largest numbers killed in Germany.
The section on "Alchemysts" focuses primarily on efforts to turn base metals into gold. Mackay notes that many of these practitioners were themselves deluded, convinced that these feats could be performed if they discovered the correct recipe or stumbled upon the right combination of ingredients. Although alchemists gained money from their sponsors, mainly noblemen, he notes that the belief in alchemy by sponsors could be hazardous to its practitioners, as it wasn't rare for an unscrupulous noble to imprison a supposed alchemist until he could produce gold.
Mackay also wrote of The Drummer of Tedworth, which was a case of an alleged poltergeist manifestation in the West Country of England in the 17th century. Charles Mackay considered the phenomena to be undoubtedly fraudulent produced by confederates of the drummer and suggested that the people involved were easily deceived.
No comments:
Post a Comment