John L. Casti

Readable, exhaustively researched, and completely iconoclastic, this book was a pleasure for me on many levels. I am always eager to hear about new ways to view this old world, and Casti has a very new way to view world events. His thesis is that the mood of the people isn't MADE by events, but rather MAKES events.

That's all, really. The mood of the country created the depression, not the depression made us moody.

The exhaustive research I mentioned is all documented in his appendices. I am show more not a professional socionomicist (from socionomics, the name given to this new way to slice and dice and analyze the tidal wave of data we're submerged under), so I won't even fake an explanation of what the science says. I will make the simple, defensible statement that your average reader won't like this book at all because every time "common sense" says x, this book says banana. Or hog-bristle.

Chapter 4, "Why Wars, Political Crises, and Economic Cycles Happen," is a giant and fascinating eye-opener for someone like me, who wondered whyinahell Americans RE-elected that goofball Bush. I suspect someone on Bush's team was a client of this man's. Everything made much more sense to me after reading this book.

Now, your common or garden economist, political scientist, statistician, and sociologist, not to mention historian!, will be inclined to herd together in muttering mobs, torches and pitchforks and pre-fashioned nooses at the ready, after reading this book. And that's a GOOD THING, because anything that makes the established truth's votaries mad, anxious, or just uneasy means leaps forward are about to happen. It doesn't much matter if Casti's analyses are right or wrong, on that level; he's made them public, and some of the establishment will be forced to address his work. They'll disprove it, or they'll co-opt it, but the quality of the conversation about why stuff happens and what we can do to shape the future has been improved.

Serious subject junkies only, please, no tourists, as the ride doesn't go through the more scenic dells and majestic passes on the way to Certainty. show less

Interesting premise about how social attitudes/moods can shape events. If you are interested in the topic, there are probably better books to read than this one.
I also agree with another review about correlation/causation--what the author indicates as causation is probably not the fact. There was vast oversimplification in many cases by the author, though this is true of many books in this genre. The book is long on theory, short on concrete evidence and it seems that the author would you show more have you believe otherwise.
Again, interesting read but overall lacking. Find another book to read on the topic if you are interested. show less

This is a book in search of an audience. It's not quite a science book, nor a business, investment, economic, finance, or sociology book. It is a mash-up book scratching the surface of those areas. The field is dubbed socionomics which is not to be confused with socioeconomics. The thesis is that collective moods drive events instead of events driving collective moods. The two main measurements used in the book to gauge collective moods are stock market indices and news headlines. That's not show more very original and they can only measure a sliver of public sentiment. The author admits socionomics needs to go along way down the road to be considered a science. No kidding! Dozens of fields have been trying to measure animal spirits for decades. It's a tough problem to solve with data increasing at a frenetic pace. Socionomics might contribute to solving the intricacies of mood measurement but it's going to need lots of help from other fields.

Mood Matters basically uses Robert R. Prechter Jr.'s work as a foundation. Prechter's work is based on the Elliot Wave Principle which some technical traders use for investment purposes. It has adherents but it also has a lot of detractors. In the lists of the world's richest people one would have to search hard to find any that claim the Elliot Wave Principle was instrumental in building their fortune. The writing and editing leave something to be desired also. The author is fond of writing " as we will show you in chapter two". Then in chapter two we are treated to "as we showed you in chapter one." This or similar phrases were distracting, then became annoying after the nth time. I haven't read Prechter's work but if one is interested in the subject I think I'd start there. show less

Casti sets up a philosophical framework around causation, rules, and probability, that distinguishes explanation of some phenomenon from prediction of that phenomenon. He then applies these ideas to a series of particular cases: weather and climate, embryology, the stock market, the outbreak of war, and mathematical proofs and truths.

The basic lay of the land is not unreasonable. But here is a suggestion. Perhaps the pinnacle of the book is at the end, with the suggestion of Lakatos that show more maybe even mathematical truth is empirical. Well, how about philosophical truth, too?

This whole book annoys me throughout because everything is sketched out rather sloppily. There are some nice stories and attempts at humor to lighten things up, which is not a bad thing. But when we get to the meat of the various matters, we never really get our teeth into it. Of course it is no easy thing to write a popular book on such deep issues. But that is the task that Casti set for himself. As a quick sketch it at least traverses interesting territory. And he does provide a "To Dig Deeper" collection of resources that is quite valuable. But it's frustrating because very little of the book really succeeds in hitting its target.

One way to make the book a bit more fun would have been to move the philosophical section to the back. Why not let the philosophy emerge from the concrete issues? That would be an empirical philosophy. Maybe by looking for the philosophical bones buried in the empirical flesh, maybe that would have tightened up the focus on the flesh. That's actually a fascinating aspect of real bodies too: the muscles shape the bones by their patterns of stresses etc.

Anyway it is an OK book but a bit like Twinings tea or Harney & Sons. Sorry if you like those. But for a fan of e.g. Taylor's of Harrogate or Fortnum and Mason... it's not that the former aren't tea at all. But a person might decide on the basis of tasting them that tea is a rather tasteless insipid brew and then miss out totally on the real stuff. You can indeed get a general sense of what these topics are about by reading Casti's book. But don't be mistaken... it's worth the struggle to find and work through more precise discussions. I wish I could recommend popular books that achieve genuine precision. Probably they exist... I am still hunting! Ah, but I should not forget perhaps one stellar example of what Casti's book is not: Hofstadter's Godel Escher Bach! Has anyone hit a pinnacle like that, since? show less