Devil Take The Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation - Hardcover

Chancellor, Edward

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0333648242 ISBN 13: 9780333648247

Publisher: Macmillan, 1999

Synopsis

This is a challenging history of the role of financial speculation from early modern times to the end of the 20th century. Focusing on speculation as it developed in the world's leading stock markets, the story starts with the tulipomania in 17th-century Holland, then moves to Britain with accounts of famous speculative manias (the South Sea Bubble, Railway mania) and to America with chapters on the roaring twenties, the junk bond revolution of the 1980s and finally the bubble economy of Japan in the 1980s.

About this title

Review

"The longest bull market in history" is a term that gets used a lot these days. Since 1990, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen some 8,000 points, from around 2,700 in January 1990 to nearly 11,000 today--a boom by anyone's standards, including Edward Chancellor's. In Devil Take the Hindmost, Chancellor takes an entertaining, albeit sobering, look at the history of speculative manias and the mass delusion that surrounds them.

Beginning with the "tulipomania" that gripped Holland in the 1630s, Chancellor chronicles the formations and irrational euphoria that can inflate markets, from shares of South Sea stock in England in the 1720s to real estate in Japan in the late 1980s. He characterises the speculative spirit as one that loves freedom, detests cant and abhors restrictions. From the tulip Colleges of the 17th century to the Internet investment clubs of the late 20th century, speculation has established itself as the most demonic of economic activities. Although profoundly secular, speculation is not simply about greed. The essence of speculation remains a Utopian yearning for freedom and equality which counterbalances the drab rationalistic materialism of the modern economic system with its inevitable inequalities of wealth. But it's precisely such inevitability that always seems to win out, when "sharply rising prices followed by sudden panic without cause" bring speculative excess to an abrupt end. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards, Amazon.com

Review

"The greatest hits of financial silliness recounted coherently and...gracefully...Chancellor does a fine job of capturing the atmosphere of the times".

-- Fortune magazine

The subtle ways in which individual investors become drawn into crowd behavior is a much studied phenomenon, covered brilliantly in the book Devil Take the Hindmost. The Daily Telegraph (London)
The South Sea Company is one of the great bubble and crash stories. Many books have referred to it. One of the finest is Devil Take the Hindmost. Debashis Basu, Money Life

Excellent. City A.M.
[An]essential history of financial manias. The Observer

A lively history of speculative manias and bubbles by a British banker turned writer. Susan Adams, Forbes"

"The subtle ways in which individual investors become drawn into crowd behavior is a much studied phenomenon, covered brilliantly... in the book Devil Take the Hindmost."--The Daily Telegraph (London)

"The South Sea Company is one of the great bubble and crash stories. Many books have referred to it. One of the finest is Devil Take the Hindmost."--Debashis Basu, Money Life

"Excellent."--City A.M.

"[An] essential history of financial manias."--The Observer

"A lively history of speculative manias and bubbles by a British banker turned writer."--Susan Adams, Forbes

Edition details

• Publisher: Macmillan
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0333648242
• ISBN 13: 9780333648247
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400