Confusión de Confusiones

A set of dialogues between a merchant, a philosopher and a shareholder about the Amsterdam exchange, written in 1688 — the earliest surviving book about stock trading, already describing short selling, options, rumour and panic.

Why it’s on the list: Named in the replies to @WillManidis asking for the single best book that explains an entire industry — a crowd-sourced list Kyle recovered by hand and saved. Three hundred and forty years on, the pathologies it describes are the ones still in the market.

Page count omitted: the surviving editions are abridged translations of very different lengths, so no single figure is verifiable.

Where I saw it: In the replies to @WillManidis asking “what is the single best book you can read that will explain an entire industry?” (June 2, 2025). Kyle recovered the reply list by hand and saved it to his “Books To Read” Apple Note; the full transcribed list lives on what is the single best book… (tweet).

Connections

• what is the single best book… (tweet) — the thread this came out of; the full recovered list lives there.
• Capital Allocation — the portfolio idea this sits closest to.