Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 220
Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
978-0-8476-9490-7 • Hardback • August 1999 • $39.95 • (£30.00)
978-0-7425-1687-8 • Paperback • October 2001 • $32.95 • (£25.00)
Charles W. Smith is professor and chair of sociology at Queens College, CUNY. The Mind of the Market, his earlier work, was an Alternative Selection of the Book of the Month Club and Fortune Book Club. Market Values in American Higher Education, Smith's next work, is due out in the Spring of 2000.
Part 1 The Ambiguity of the Market
Part 2 The True Believers
Part 3 Selling the Market
Part 4 Cynicism, Faith and Foolishness
Part 5 Putting it All Together
Part 6 Some Practical Advice for the Individual Investor
Part 7 A Theoretical and Methodological Note
Part 8 A Selected Glossary of Stock Market Terminology
In his deeply ironic analysis, Charles Smith shows us that the highly specialized milieux of securities markets resemble life in general; mysterious in some ways, unpredictable in other ways, intimately dependent on socially created stories in every regard, yet centered on mundane transactions of sale and purchase. What's more, Smith relates the market's operation to the everyday activities of its uncertain, often worried participants.
— Viviana Zeliver, Princeton University
Charles Smith x-rays the reasoning behind the behavior of professionals that investors encounter as they navigate the market. Mercilessly stripping away the rhetoric, he gives a spare yet clear and revealing account of six fundamental ways of thinking, and advises investors on how to cope with the sales strategies that correspond to them. An eye-opener for the legions bewildered by their investment advisers, or for any who simply want to understand the ‘mind of the market.'
— Mark Granovetter, Stanford University
My absolute favorite new investment book should be read by anyone eager to make a million in the market, Success and Survival on Wall Street: Understanding the Mind of the Market. . . . Smith has come up with a taxonomy of the Wall Street species.
— Robert Barker; Business Week
Smith's book is a representative of a rare genre: sociology books useful to the general reader.
— Contemporary Sociology