Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation |  | Author: Edward Chancellor
Publisher: Plume
List Price: $17.00
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Seller: cubusa_books
Rating:  66 reviews
Sales Rank: 12228
Media: Paperback
Pages: 400
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9 x 5.9 x 0.9
ISBN: 0452281806
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.64509
EAN: 9780452281806
ASIN: 0452281806
Publication Date: June 1, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com 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 characterizes the speculative spirit as one that loves freedom, detests cant, and abhors restrictions. From the tulip Colleges of the seventeenth century to the Internet investment clubs of the late twentieth century, speculation has established itself as the most demotic 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. Chancellor makes Devil Take the Hindmost especially relevant to today's U.S. investors by using his analysis of past speculative manias as a lens through which to view the current bull-market binge. No matter what his or her current investment outlook is--bull or bear--anyone with capital to invest would do well to spend a thoughtful weekend with this book. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards
Product Description
Is your investment in that new Internet stock a sign of stock market savvy or an act of peculiarly American speculative folly? How has the psychology of investing changed--and not changed--over the last five hundred years? Edward Chancellor examines the nature of speculation--from medieval Europe to the Tulip mania of the 1630s to today's Internet stock craze. A contributing writer to The Financial Times and The Economist, Chancellor looks at both the psychological and economic forces that drive people to "bet" their money in markets; how markets are made, unmade, and manipulated; and who wins when speculation runs rampant. Drawing colorfully on the words of such speculators as Sir Isaac Newton, Daniel Defoe, Ivan Boesky, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, Devil Take the Hindmost is part history, part social science, and purely illuminating: an erudite and hugely entertaining book that is more timely today than ever before.
"Entertaining, useful, admirable scholarship . . . Chancellor seems to have read everything." --Adam Smith, The New York Times Book Review
"Anyone contemplating a stock market venture and certainly anyone now involved should read this book."--John Kenneth Gailbraith
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 66
 Essential reading for all speculators...if you intend to succeed November 11, 2009
Tlo (Perth WA Australia)
I have been a client adviser in speculative/growth investments for 11 years and have recommended that all my clients purchase this book. Along with Peter Lynch's One Up on Wall Street, and my yet to be written second book I believe that these three are all you need to provide the platform for success in speculation. It is amazing how those tied up in textile, shipping and mining companies in the 1600's would not look at out of place in some of the bars/eateries in Perth. No doubt hairstyles would have changed but I can just imagine the rubbish flying back and forth way back then. This book illustrates clearly and with considerable passion how human stupidity is infinite and "Fear is temporary and greed is perpetual".
I could not imagine Australians willing to pay 1200x earnings for Qantas or Virgin Blue or insane amounts to join a rundown public golf course. It shows that bubbles can show up anywhere and although the great Nasdaq bubble came after the book was written the same rules apply. This book will help us prepare for the bubble in Australia considering we were the first to lift rates, and we had that Hey Hey Its Saturday skit which earnt the country considerable publicity.
When times get tough i.e when you should be buying stocks low this book brings it all together and I cannot recommend it strongly enough. No need for black boxes, flux capacitors or $5,000 seminar courses, this book nails it in an easy to read and enjoyable manner! Buy low, buy quality, buy lots and sell high it never changes!
Tony Locantro
Perth WA
Great history book October 10, 2009
Stephen Samperi (Houston, TX)
I really liked it. It went into pretty good detail on some major market bubbles. Mainly focuses on London and New York events. I learned a lot and it was pretty easy to read, except for some run on sentences. Im not sure if the author was trying to make it sound "old timey" but he spells words funny too....i dunno, but i read financial books all the time and this is one of the best ones that i have now.
 Good history but misses the obvious August 30, 2009
Liberty4all (New York, NY USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a good look at the major bubbles of the past few hundred years, but I think in terms of a unifying theory it misses the obvious although it hints at it a few times. What all these episodes have in common is fractional banking and out of control growth of money and credit. Author seems to be grasping at technological and/or financial innovations to explain bubbles and it may be true that bubbles form in those areas of the economy, but they are simply where the bubble appears and not the cause of it. Inflation is the culprit.
Author does show that regulation is always a step behind and he does demonstrate that attempts at regulation can even make the problem worse (e.g. Japanese regulators outlawing real estate loan which then went into the art market.
Others have mentioned that the footnotes are annoying and I fully agree. There is also a whiff of anti-free market bias here but not enough to where it gets annoying.
Finally, ironically, author closes the book by stating that Hayek has been proven wrong about creeping socialism being inevitable in a mixed economy. Yet now in mid 2009 with banks and auto companies being bailed out by taxpayers, Cash for Clunkers, talk of the "public option" for healthcare, stimulus, a pay czar etc, Hayek looks more prescient than ever.
Greed never changes August 15, 2009
Mariusz Skonieczny (ClassicValueInvestors.blogspot.com)
I don't think anyone can be a successful investor without understanding some financial history. It is so easy to get caught up in the current financial crisis and not think from the big perspective. Over a period of 300 years, the crisis that we are going through right now will be just a glimpse of panic and destruction of wealth.
In this book, the author takes us through the history of different speculative periods beginning with the "tulipomania" in Holland (1630s) and all the way to real estate in Japan (1980s). Crowds behaved very similarly then as they do now. I loved how the author named the quote from Sir John Templeton as the most expensive words in English language, "This time it's different."
It is never different. The bubbles are always created by greed and too much leverage. This is exactly what caused the current financial crisis. When credit is curtailed, deleverage takes place, greed turns into fear, and the bubbles burst. This is the story of today's financial crisis.
Besides this book, I would also recommend Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles MacKay. Both of these books provide great historical education about speculation and bubbles.
- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market
Thoroughly researched, well written history March 17, 2009
David Gould (Duluth, GA United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Written in late 1998, this book gives detailed, well researched historical examples of financial speculation eerily similar to what followed in the dot com boom/bust and the real estate, commodity and equity bubble and collapse now in effect. As Mr. Chancellor repeats throughout the book, speculation always emanates from greed and is abetted by an extension of credit, i.e., leverage. Then when the de-leveraging phase begins, fear rules and the bubbles burst. This proves that although history never exactly repeats itself, human natures doesn't change ,and over time, past mistakes are forgotten, allowing new speculative periods to arise.
I highly recommend this work, particularly for those who enjoy history, finance, economics and psychology.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 66
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