For the many pundits masquerading as authorities, there are precious few whom time confirms as worthy of commendation. Edward Chancellor is one of them.
As the dot.com bubble relentlessly defied history, logic, and valuation’s gravitational pull through the late 1990s—the NASDAQ composite doubling from October 1998 to October 1999 and then, remarkably, doubling again from October 1999 to March 2020—the undersigned was in search of kindred spirits. A resolute contrarian, I remember voraciously consuming two books that leaned in solitary with me, as a David against the Goliath of the prevailing speculative winds. Those were Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation (published on June 1, 1999) by Edward Chancellor and Irrational Exuberance (published on March 15, 2000) by Robert Shiller. The passage-of-time crucible revealed both authoritative books to be eerily prescient.
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