"The Great Mirror of Folly" by William N. Goetzmann

The Great Mirror of Folly Finance, Culture, and the Crash of 1720 William N. Goetzmann, Catherine Labio, K. Geert Rouwenhorst, Timothy Young, Robert Shiller

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Series:: Yale Series in Economic and Financial History
Format:: Hardback
Publication date:: 26 Nov 2013
ISBN:: 9780300162462
Imprint:: Yale University Press
Dimensions:: 360 pages: 305 x 229 x 29mm
Illustrations:: 240 color + 15 b-w illus.

Categories:

Humanities »
History »
Ancient to Modern »
Modern History to 20th Century c 1700 to c 1900 »

The world’s first global stock market bubble suddenly burst in 1720, destroying the dreams and fortunes of speculators in London, Paris, and Amsterdam virtually overnight. Their folly and misfortune inspired the publication of an extraordinary Dutch collection of satirical prints, plays, poetry, commentary, and financial prospectuses entitled Het groote Tafereel de Dwaasheid (The Great Mirror of Folly), a unique and lavish record of the financial crisis and its cultural dimensions. The current book adopts the title. It is a book about the book, a wide-ranging interdisciplinary collaboration that uncovers the meaning and influence of the Tafereel and the profound, lasting, and multifaceted impact of the crash of 1720 on European cultures and financial markets.

William N. Goetzmann is the Edwin J. Beinecke Professor of Finance and Management at the Yale School of Management. Catherine Labio is associate professor of English at the University of Colorado Boulder. K. Geert Rouwenhorst is Robert B. & Candice J. Haas Professor of Corporate Finance at the Yale School of Management. Timothy G. Young is curator of modern books and manuscripts at Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

“As global as anything could be in its time, the financial collapse of 1720 elicits a multidisciplinary approach from authors magnificently skilled in art, economic, social, and book histories. Would that our own economic crises will one day produce erudition of this quality, in a volume that pleases both the mind and the eye.”--Margaret C. Jacob, Distinguished Professor of History, UCLA

"Will we ever grasp that a dynamic society sometimes flops? Judging from this ravishing display of financial folly from three centuries ago, and the illuminating modern commentary, it doesn’t look like it." - Deirdre N. McCloskey, author of Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World (2010)

"The most visually stunning and. . . one of the most important investing books of the past year."—Jason Zweig, Wall Street Journal

“This is a wonderful book about an extraordinary work, Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid (The Great Mirror of Folly) . . . . a giant piece of satire aimed at denigrating the greed and hubris of the speculators of 1720 . . . . This is a book of great scholarship . . . that should adorn the shelves of all those interested in money, banking, financial innovation, bubbles and the behavior of people during asset market crashes.”—Antoine H. Murphy, EH.net

“Beautifully produced . . . admirably coherent . . . generally impressive.”?American Historical Review