It's usually a good omen when a distinguished historian casts a gimlet eye on what 19th-century essayist Charles Mackay called the "extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds."
All the better if the fata morgana in question turns out to be that age-old scam, astrology.
Benson Bobrick takes up the task in "The Fated Sky: Astrology in History" (Simon & Schuster, 384 pages, $26), which chronicles how planet worship has influenced mankind from ancient Baghdad to modern America, where 10 million people a year pay to have their horoscopes read.
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