Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

First published in 1841,  Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is often  cited as the best book ever written about market psychology. This  Harriman House edition includes Charles Mackay's account of the three  infamous financial manias - John Law's Mississipi Scheme, the South Sea  Bubble, and Tulipomania.
Between the three of them, these historic  episodes confirm that greed and fear have always been the driving forces  of financial markets, and, furthermore, that being sensible and clever  is no defence against the mesmeric allure of a popular craze with the  wind behind it.

In writing the history of the great financial  manias, Charles Mackay proved himself a master chronicler of social as  well as financial history. Blessed with a cast of characters that  covered all the vices, gifted a passage of events which was inevitably  heading for disaster, and with the benefit of hindsight, he produced a  record that is at once a riveting thriller and absorbing historical  document. A century and a half later, it is as vibrant and lurid as the  day it was written.

For modern-day investors, still reeling from  the dotcom crash, the moral of the popular manias scarcely needs  spelling out. When the next stock market bubble comes along, as it  surely will, you are advised to recall the plight of some of the  unfortunates on these pages, and avoid getting dragged under the wheels  of the careering bandwagon yourself.