This volume combines elements of neuropsychology, social psychology, evolutionary psychology, financial economics and history, macroeconomics, the eschatology of all three Abrahamic religions, and wide swaths of historical analysis, from the ancient to the modern periods. Not many are conversant with more than a few of these subjects, let alone all of them. I am therefore indebted to a wide range of individual experts in these areas:
Michael Barkun, on the relationship between millennialism and violence; David Blitzer and Kimberly Boyle, for access to Dow Jones returns data; Scott Burns and Laura Jacobus, for archival newspaper material; the late John C. Bogle, Burton Malkiel, and Richard Sylla, for perspectives on the 1960s technology investing craze; D. Campbell-Meiklejohn, on the fMRI data on bias disconfirmation; Edward Chancellor, for perspectives on equity bubbles; Henry Clements, for help with translation of Arabic sources; Chris Dennistoun, for bringing Richard Davenport, a predecessor of Mackay, to my attention; Jacob J. Goldstein, for help with NPR archives; Henrique Gomes, for access to and help with the marvelous Adventist Digital Library; Gershom Gorenberg, on the history of Melody the cow; Joel Greenblatt, for comments on his extension of the Galton experiment; Thomas Hegghammer, on the eschatology of the Meccan siege; Ron Inglehart, for quantitative data on religiosity; Philip Jenkins on the 1980s Satanism moral panic; Philip Johnson-Laird and Barry Popik, on the origins of the modern concept of confirmation bias; Toby C. Jones, on the eastern Saudi Shiite rebellion; Brendan Karch, on Hitler’s power of suasion; Ofir and Haim Kedar, on Zionist history; Daniel Levitin, on the role of music in delusional propagation; Peter Logan, on Mackay’s literary history; Mike Piper, on the history of retirement plans; Susan Pulliam and Penny Wang, on the ground-level history of the 1990s internet bubble; Peter Richerson, on the group evolution controversy; Jean-Paul Rodrigue, on the explosive growth of internet traffic; Terry Ann Rogers, for general editorial comments; Greg Schramm, on internet history; Robert Shiller, on the relevance of the epidemic equations to finance; Matthew Avery Sutton, on modern dispensationalism; Robert Trivers, on the finer points of evolutionary psychology; Brett Whalen, on the connection between the Jaochites and Munster Anabaptists; Barrie Wigmore, on Franklin Roosevelt’s preinauguration stance on the gold standard; and Jason Zweig, for comments on early financial bubbles and artistic advise.
I am especially grateful to David Cook and Jean-Pierre Filiu for detailed help with Islamic apocalyptic thought and literature. Crawford Gribben generously guided me through the intricacies of the historical origins of dispensationalism. Richard Gerrig described in detail the ability of compelling narratives to corrode analytical ability. Ronald Numbers and Andrew Odlyzko availed me of their encyclopedic knowledge of, respectively, Millerism and early financial bubbles.
Finally, Christopher Mackay (no relationship to Charles Mackay), more than generously availed me of his singular knowledge of the Anabaptist Madness.
All of the above prevented me from more grossly exposing the lacunae in my knowledge of these areas.
George Gibson shepherded the book from the initial drafts through production, and along the way not only transformed a jumble of indecipherable and disconnected chapters into a coherent whole, but also imparted to me some sorely needed editorial discipline and large blocks of wisdom accumulated over his decades in publishing.
Emily Burns for help with image permissions, Gretchen Mergenthaler for the jacket, Julia Berner-Tobin for precision, John Mark Boling for publicity, Martin Lubikowski for the maps, and Lewis O’Brien for permissions advice and support.
And, as always, Jane Gigler, my wife and first reader, provided invaluable editorial and substantive input from the earliest stages.
I would be lost without her.