From tulips and scrips to bitcoin and meme stocks – how the act of speculating became a financial ma

In the late 1990s, America experienced a dot-com mania. In the 2000s, the housing market went wild.

Today, there are manias in everything from bitcoin and nonfungible tokens to SPACs and meme stocks – obscure corners of the market that are getting increased attention. Whether these are the next bubbles to burst remains to be seen.

The sudden rise of all these relatively new asset classes – or the astronomical heights they’ve reached – may seem irrational or even enchanted. Describing them as speculative manias implies that individuals are lost in forces beyond their control and needn’t take responsibility for the actions of the crowd.

But, as I learned while researching my book “Speculation: A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI,” which will be published in June 2021, financial speculation hasn’t always been understood as a widespread craze – or even outside of individual choice.

Adam Smith and the rise of financial speculation
From ancient times until the late 1700s, the term “speculation” was used mainly by philosophers, scientists and authors to describe conjectures about the future. When speaking of traders who manipulated the prices of an asset to make an outsize profit, financial writers instead used terms like “engrossing” or “cornering” the market.

An illustration of Gen. George Washington on a horse holding his hat as he leads his men in a battle in 1777
George Washington thought financial speculators would ruin the country. AP Photo
After a series of international credit scandals in the 1770s, though, “speculation” became the favored descriptor for high-risk financial gambling. Political economist Adam Smith used the term extensively in “Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776, after seeing it used to describe lotteries and smuggling. He saw in it a perfect term for how traders were trying to capitalize exponentially on the inherent In the late 1990s, America experienced a dot-com mania. In the 2000s, the housing market went wild.

Today, there are manias in everything from bitcoin and nonfungible tokens to SPACs and meme stocks – obscure corners of the market that are getting increased attention. Whether these are the next bubbles to burst remains to be see

The sudden rise of all these relatively new asset classes – or the astronomical heights they’ve reached – may seem irrational or even enchanted. Describing them as speculative manias implies that individuals are lost in forces beyond their control and needn’t take responsibility for the actions of the crow

But, as I learned while researching my book “Speculation: A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI,” which will be published in June 2021, financial speculation hasn’t always been understood as a widespread craze – or even outside of individual choic

Adam Smith and the rise of financial speculati
From ancient times until the late 1700s, the term “speculation” was used mainly by philosophers, scientists and authors to describe conjectures about the future. When speaking of traders who manipulated the prices of an asset to make an outsize profit, financial writers instead used terms like “engrossing” or “cornering” the market

An illustration of Gen. George Washington on a horse holding his hat as he leads his men in a battle in 17
George Washington thought financial speculators would ruin the country. AP Phot
After a series of international credit scandals in the 1770s, though, “speculation” became the favored descriptor for high-risk financial gambling. Political economist Adam Smith used the term extensively in “Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776, after seeing it used to describe lotteries and smuggling. He saw in it a perfect term for how traders were trying to capitalize exponentially on the inherent riskIn the late 1990s, America experienced a dot-com mania. In the 2000s, the housing market went wild.

Today, there are manias in everything from bitcoin and nonfungible tokens to SPACs and meme stocks – obscure corners of the market that are getting increased attention. Whether these are the next bubbles to burst remains to be seen.

The sudden rise of all these relatively new asset classes – or the astronomical heights they’ve reached – may seem irrational or even enchanted. Describing them as speculative manias implies that individuals are lost in forces beyond their control and needn’t take responsibility for the actions of the crowd.

But, as I learned while researching my book “Speculation: A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI,” which will be published in June 2021, financial speculation hasn’t always been understood as a widespread craze – or even outside of individual choice.

Adam Smith and the rise of financial speculation
From ancient times until the late 1700s, the term “speculation” was used mainly by philosophers, scientists and authors to describe conjectures about the future. When speaking of traders who manipulated the prices of an asset to make an outsize profit, financial writers instead used terms like “engrossing” or “cornering” the market.

An illustration of Gen. George Washington on a horse holding his hat as he leads his men in a battle in 1777
George Washington thought financial speculators would ruin the country. AP Photo
After a series of international credit scandals in the 1770s, though, “speculation” became the favored descriptor for high-risk financial gambling. Political economist Adam Smith used the term extensively in “Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776, after seeing it used to describe lotteries and smuggling. He saw in it a perfect term for how traders were trying to capitalize exponentially on the iIn the late 1990s, America experienced a dot-com mania. In the 2000s, the housing market went wild.

Today, there are manias in everything from bitcoin and nonfungible tokens to SPACs and meme stocks – obscure corners of the market that are getting increased attention. Whether these are the next bubbles to burst remains to be seen.

The sudden rise of all these relatively new asset classes – or the astronomical heights they’ve reached – may seem irrational or even enchanted. Describing them as speculative manias implies that individuals are lost in forces beyond their control and needn’t take responsibility for the actions of the crowd.

But, as I learned while researching my book “Speculation: A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI,” which will be published in June 2021, financial speculation hasn’t always been understood as a widespread craze – or even outside of individual choice.

Adam Smith and the rise of financial speculation
From ancient times until the late 1700s, the term “speculation” was used mainly by philosophers, scientists and authors to describe conjectures about the future. When speaking of traders who manipulated the prices of an asset to make an outsize profit, financial writers instead used terms like “engrossing” or “cornering” the market.

An illustration of Gen. George Washington on a horse holding his hat as he leads his men in a battle in 1777
George Washington thought financial speculators would ruin the country. AP Photo
After a series of international credit scandals in the 1770s, though, “speculation” became the favored descriptor for high-risk financial gambling. Political economist Adam Smith used the term extensively in “Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776, after seeing it used to describe lotteries and smuggling. He saw in it a perfect term for how traders were trying to capitalize exponentially on the iIn the late 1990s, America experienced a dot-com mania. In the 2000s, the housing market went wild.

Today, there are manias in everything from bitcoin and nonfungible tokens to SPACs and meme stocks – obscure corners of the market that are getting increased attention. Whether these are the next bubbles to burst remains to be seen.

The sudden rise of all these relatively new asset classes – or the astronomical heights they’ve reached – may seem irrational or even enchanted. Describing them as speculative manias implies that individuals are lost in forces beyond their control and needn’t take responsibility for the actions of the crowd.

But, as I learned while researching my book “Speculation: A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI,” which will be published in June 2021, financial speculation hasn’t always been understood as a widespread craze – or even outside of individual choice.

Adam Smith and the rise of financial speculation
From ancient times until the late 1700s, the term “speculation” was used mainly by philosophers, scientists and authors to describe conjectures about the future. When speaking of traders who manipulated the prices of an asset to make an outsize profit, financial writers instead used terms like “engrossing” or “cornering” the market.

An illustration of Gen. George Washington on a horse holding his hat as he leads his men in a battle in 1777
George Washington thought financial speculators would ruin the country. AP Photo
After a series of international credit scandals in the 1770s, though, “speculation” became the favored descriptor for high-risk financial gambling. Political economist Adam Smith used the term extensively in “Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776, after seeing it used to describe lotteries and smuggling. He saw in it a perfect term for how traders were trying to capitalize exponentially on the iIn the late 1990s, America experienced a dot-com mania. In the 2000s, the housing market went wild.

Today, there are manias in everything from bitcoin and nonfungible tokens to SPACs and meme stocks – obscure corners of the market that are getting increased attention. Whether these are the next bubbles to burst remains to be seen.

The sudden rise of all these relatively new asset classes – or the astronomical heights they’ve reached – may seem irrational or even enchanted. Describing them as speculative manias implies that individuals are lost in forces beyond their control and needn’t take responsibility for the actions of the crowd.

But, as I learned while researching my book “Speculation: A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI,” which will be published in June 2021, financial speculation hasn’t always been understood as a widespread craze – or even outside of individual choice.

Adam Smith and the rise of financial speculation
From ancient times until the late 1700s, the term “speculation” was used mainly by philosophers, scientists and authors to describe conjectures about the future. When speaking of traders who manipulated the prices of an asset to make an outsize profit, financial writers instead used terms like “engrossing” or “cornering” the market.

An illustration of Gen. George Washington on a horse holding his hat as he leads his men in a battle in 1777
George Washington thought financial speculators would ruin the country. AP Photo
After a series of international credit scandals in the 1770s, though, “speculation” became the favored descriptor for high-risk financial gambling. Political economist Adam Smith used the term extensively in “Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776, after seeing it used to describe lotteries and smuggling. He saw in it a perfect term for how traders were trying to capitalize exponentially on the iIn the late 1990s, America experienced a dot-com mania. In the 2000s, the housing market went wild.

Today, there are manias in everything from bitcoin and nonfungible tokens to SPACs and meme stocks – obscure corners of the market that are getting increased attention. Whether these are the next bubbles to burst remains to be seen.

The sudden rise of all these relatively new asset classes – or the astronomical heights they’ve reached – may seem irrational or even enchanted. Describing them as speculative manias implies that individuals are lost in forces beyond their control and needn’t take responsibility for the actions of the crowd.

But, as I learned while researching my book “Speculation: A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI,” which will be published in June 2021, financial speculation hasn’t always been understood as a widespread craze – or even outside of individual choice.

Adam Smith and the rise of financial speculation
From ancient times until the late 1700s, the term “speculation” was used mainly by philosophers, scientists and authors to describe conjectures about the future. When speaking of traders who manipulated the prices of an asset to make an outsize profit, financial writers instead used terms like “engrossing” or “cornering” the market.

An illustration of Gen. George Washington on a horse holding his hat as he leads his men in a battle in 1777
George Washington thought financial speculators would ruin the country. AP Photo
After a series of international credit scandals in the 1770s, though, “speculation” became the favored descriptor for high-risk financial gambling. Political economist Adam Smith used the term extensively in “Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776, after seeing it used to describe lotteries and smuggling. He saw in it a perfect term for how traders were trying to capitalize exponentially on the iIn the late 1990s, America experienced a dot-com mania. In the 2000s, the housing market went wild.

Today, there are manias in everything from bitcoin and nonfungible tokens to SPACs and meme stocks – obscure corners of the market that are getting increased attention. Whether these are the next bubbles to burst remains to be seen.

The sudden rise of all these relatively new asset classes – or the astronomical heights they’ve reached – may seem irrational or even enchanted. Describing them as speculative manias implies that individuals are lost in forces beyond their control and needn’t take responsibility for the actions of the crowd.

But, as I learned while researching my book “Speculation: A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI,” which will be published in June 2021, financial speculation hasn’t always been understood as a widespread craze – or even outside of individual choice.

Adam Smith and the rise of financial speculation
From ancient times until the late 1700s, the term “speculation” was used mainly by philosophers, scientists and authors to describe conjectures about the future. When speaking of traders who manipulated the prices of an asset to make an outsize profit, financial writers instead used terms like “engrossing” or “cornering” the market.

An illustration of Gen. George Washington on a horse holding his hat as he leads his men in a battle in 1777
George Washington thought financial speculators would ruin the country. AP Photo
After a series of international credit scandals in the 1770s, though, “speculation” became the favored descriptor for high-risk financial gambling. Political economist Adam Smith used the term extensively in “Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776, after seeing it used to describe lotteries and smuggling. He saw in it a perfect term for how traders were trying to capitalize exponentially on the iIn the late 1990s, America experienced a dot-com mania. In the 2000s, the housing market went wild.

Today, there are manias in everything from bitcoin and nonfungible tokens to SPACs and meme stocks – obscure corners of the market that are getting increased attention. Whether these are the next bubbles to burst remains to be seen.

The sudden rise of all these relatively new asset classes – or the astronomical heights they’ve reached – may seem irrational or even enchanted. Describing them as speculative manias implies that individuals are lost in forces beyond their control and needn’t take responsibility for the actions of the crowd.

But, as I learned while researching my book “Speculation: A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI,” which will be published in June 2021, financial speculation hasn’t always been understood as a widespread craze – or even outside of individual choice.

Adam Smith and the rise of financial speculation
From ancient times until the late 1700s, the term “speculation” was used mainly by philosophers, scientists and authors to describe conjectures about the future. When speaking of traders who manipulated the prices of an asset to make an outsize profit, financial writers instead used terms like “engrossing” or “cornering” the market.

An illustration of Gen. George Washington on a horse holding his hat as he leads his men in a battle in 1777
George Washington thought financial speculators would ruin the country. AP Photo
After a series of international credit scandals in the 1770s, though, “speculation” became the favored descriptor for high-risk financial gambling. Political economist Adam Smith used the term extensively in “Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776, after seeing it used to describe lotteries and smuggling. He saw in it a perfect term for how traders were trying to capitalize exponentially on the iIn the late 1990s, America experienced a dot-com mania. In the 2000s, the housing market went wild.

Today, there are manias in everything from bitcoin and nonfungible tokens to SPACs and meme stocks – obscure corners of the market that are getting increased attention. Whether these are the next bubbles to burst remains to be seen.

The sudden rise of all these relatively new asset classes – or the astronomical heights they’ve reached – may seem irrational or even enchanted. Describing them as speculative manias implies that individuals are lost in forces beyond their control and needn’t take responsibility for the actions of the crowd.

But, as I learned while researching my book “Speculation: A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI,” which will be published in June 2021, financial speculation hasn’t always been understood as a widespread craze – or even outside of individual choice.

Adam Smith and the rise of financial speculation
From ancient times until the late 1700s, the term “speculation” was used mainly by philosophers, scientists and authors to describe conjectures about the future. When speaking of traders who manipulated the prices of an asset to make an outsize profit, financial writers instead used terms like “engrossing” or “cornering” the market.

An illustration of Gen. George Washington on a horse holding his hat as he leads his men in a battle in 1777
George Washington thought financial speculators would ruin the country. AP Photo
After a series of international credit scandals in the 1770s, though, “speculation” became the favored descriptor for high-risk financial gambling. Political economist Adam Smith used the term extensively in “Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776, after seeing it used to describe lotteries and smuggling. He saw in it a perfect term for how traders were trying to capitalize exponentially on the iIn the late 1990s, America experienced a dot-com mania. In the 2000s, the housing market went wild.

Today, there are manias in everything from bitcoin and nonfungible tokens to SPACs and meme stocks – obscure corners of the market that are getting increased attention. Whether these are the next bubbles to burst remains to be seen.

The sudden rise of all these relatively new asset classes – or the astronomical heights they’ve reached – may seem irrational or even enchanted. Describing them as speculative manias implies that individuals are lost in forces beyond their control and needn’t take responsibility for the actions of the crowd.

But, as I learned while researching my book “Speculation: A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI,” which will be published in June 2021, financial speculation hasn’t always been understood as a widespread craze – or even outside of individual choice.

Adam Smith and the rise of financial speculation
From ancient times until the late 1700s, the term “speculation” was used mainly by philosophers, scientists and authors to describe conjectures about the future. When speaking of traders who manipulated the prices of an asset to make an outsize profit, financial writers instead used terms like “engrossing” or “cornering” the market.

An illustration of Gen. George Washington on a horse holding his hat as he leads his men in a battle in 1777
George Washington thought financial speculators would ruin the country. AP Photo
After a series of international credit scandals in the 1770s, though, “speculation” became the favored descriptor for high-risk financial gambling. Political economist Adam Smith used the term extensively in “Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776, after seeing it used to describe lotteries and smuggling. He saw in it a perfect term for how traders were trying to capitalize exponentially on the iIn the late 1990s, America experienced a dot-com mania. In the 2000s, the housing market went wild.

Today, there are manias in everything from bitcoin and nonfungible tokens to SPACs and meme stocks – obscure corners of the market that are getting increased attention. Whether these are the next bubbles to burst remains to be seen.

The sudden rise of all these relatively new asset classes – or the astronomical heights they’ve reached – may seem irrational or even enchanted. Describing them as speculative manias implies that individuals are lost in forces beyond their control and needn’t take responsibility for the actions of the crowd.

But, as I learned while researching my book “Speculation: A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI,” which will be published in June 2021, financial speculation hasn’t always been understood as a widespread craze – or even outside of individual choice.

Adam Smith and the rise of financial speculation
From ancient times until the late 1700s, the term “speculation” was used mainly by philosophers, scientists and authors to describe conjectures about the future. When speaking of traders who manipulated the prices of an asset to make an outsize profit, financial writers instead used terms like “engrossing” or “cornering” the market.

An illustration of Gen. George Washington on a horse holding his hat as he leads his men in a battle in 1777
George Washington thought financial speculators would ruin the country. AP Photo
After a series of international credit scandals in the 1770s, though, “speculation” became the favored descriptor for high-risk financial gambling. Political economist Adam Smith used the term extensively in “Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776, after seeing it used to describe lotteries and smuggling. He saw in it a perfect term for how traders were trying to capitalize exponentially on the iIn the late 1990s, America experienced a dot-com mania. In the 2000s, the housing market went wild.

Today, there are manias in everything from bitcoin and nonfungible tokens to SPACs and meme stocks – obscure corners of the market that are getting increased attention. Whether these are the next bubbles to burst remains to be seen.

The sudden rise of all these relatively new asset classes – or the astronomical heights they’ve reached – may seem irrational or even enchanted. Describing them as speculative manias implies that individuals are lost in forces beyond their control and needn’t take responsibility for the actions of the crowd.

But, as I learned while researching my book “Speculation: A Cultural History from Aristotle to AI,” which will be published in June 2021, financial speculation hasn’t always been understood as a widespread craze – or even outside of individual choice.

Adam Smith and the rise of financial speculation
From ancient times until the late 1700s, the term “speculation” was used mainly by philosophers, scientists and authors to describe conjectures about the future. When speaking of traders who manipulated the prices of an asset to make an outsize profit, financial writers instead used terms like “engrossing” or “cornering” the market.

An illustration of Gen. George Washington on a horse holding his hat as he leads his men in a battle in 1777
George Washington thought financial speculators would ruin the country. AP Photo
After a series of international credit scandals in the 1770s, though, “speculation” became the favored descriptor for high-risk financial gambling. Political economist Adam Smith used the term extensively in “Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776, after seeing it used to describe lotteries and smuggling. He saw in it a perfect term for how traders were trying to capitalize exponentially on the inherent risksnherent risksnherent risksnherent risksnherent risksnherent risksnherent risksnherent risksnherent risksnherent risksnherent risksso77.one.d.n.