Tulipomania : The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused
by Mike Dash
Book Summary Information
Author: Mike DashEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2001-01-30
ISBN: 060980765X
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780609807651
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Book Reviews of Tulipomania : The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused
Book Review: A Single Flower and the Dutch Golden Age
Summary: 5 Stars
In 1562, most of the first tulip bulbs ever to enter Holland were mistaken for a type of onion and were promptly roasted and eaten. The few that were actually planted in the ground popped up the following spring, to the utter astonishment of Dutchmen (and -women). But it took almost another century for the flowers to drive them crazy.
Why would pious, hard-working Calvinist merchants spend fortunes (few won, most lost) on a flower? The story of Holland's infatuation with tulips in the 1630s is as much a story of the temperate Dutch merchants' uncomfortableness with their own wealth. (The Catholics--they could flaunt their money. Calvinists--they had to repress it.)
The Dutch East India Company was founded in 1602. After a few decades of Dutch ships plying distant seas and returning home laden with exotic goods, the merchants with a stake in the game became staggeringly wealthy. Yet even with their newfound wealth, they were still Calvinists: severe and restrained. They didn't decorate themselves (like those Catholics), so they decorated their surroundings. And what to buy with all that wealth? How about a commissioned portrait of wife and kids (looking severe and restrained)? Check. Nice house? Check. Manicured garden behind house? Check. And to fill that garden?
An exotic flower, first introduced from the Orient, became the object of a national obsession. Entire markets were created just to trade tulips, and the markets were soon swamped with speculators. It was the first-ever futures market. At the height of the tulip-mania, in 1636 and 1637, single bulbs could be sold for 3,000 guilders: enough to buy you one ship, eight pigs, four oxen, sundry other animals, a year's worth of food (good food, mind you), a set of clothes, some furniture and some nice silver cutlery to boot.
So why the tulip? Perhaps it was the Calvinist equivalent of the five-carat diamond ring: an acceptable treasure, neither flashy nor ostentatious, but delicate and natural, created by God. (And perhaps the fact that it bloomed only a few weeks every year meant the neighbors couldn't accuse you of constantly showing off your wealth--another sign of God's own temperance.)
The story of any 'mania' offers insight into the aspirations and anxieties of the culture it affects. And even though Mike Dash's 'Tulipomania' focuses primarily on the short-lived craze for a single flower, it opens a window on the social economics of the Dutch "Golden Age": how Holland's merchant class struggled with its strict faith, its new-found wealth, and its place at the center of a burgeoning world power.
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Summary of Tulipomania : The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused
In the 1630s, visitors to the prosperous trading cities of the Netherlands couldn't help but notice that thousands of normally sober, hardworking Dutch citizens from every walk of life were caught up in an extraordinary frenzy of buying and selling. The object of this unprecedented speculation was the tulip, a delicate and exotic Eastern import that had bewitched horticulturists, noblemen, and tavern owners alike. For almost a year rare bulbs changed hands for incredible and ever-increasing sums, until single flowers were being sold for more than the cost of a house.Historians would come to call it tulipomania. It was the first futures market in history, and like so many of the ones that would follow, it crashed spectacularly, plunging speculators and investors into economic ruin and despair.
This is the history of the tulip, from its origins on the barren, windswept steppes of central Asia to its place of honor in the lush imperial gardens of Constantinople, to its starring moment as the most coveted--and beautiful--commodity in Europe. Historian Mike Dash vividly narrates the story of this amazing flower and the colorful cast of characters--Turkish sultans, Yugoslav soldiers, French botanists, and Dutch tavern keepers--who were centuries apart historically and worlds apart culturally, but who all had one thing in common: tulipomania.
For history buffs or gardeners who enjoy more than just digging in the dirt, Tulipomania presents a fascinating look at the tulip frenzy that took place in Holland in the mid-1600s. Beginning as gifts given among the wealthy and educated folk of Europe and Asia, the tulip rapidly became a source of incredible financial gain--similar to today's Internet start-up companies or Beanie Baby collections. Stories of craftsmen discontinuing their trade and focusing on raising tulips for public auction, where they sold for prices comparable to that of a manor house, are astonishing. Poets, moralists, businessmen--it seems everyone was involved at some level.
Lack of regulation and poor quality control were just a couple of the details that led to the abrupt crash in February 1637. Tulipomania was the original market bust--people were ruined, debts went unpaid. It was a disaster similar to the stock-market crash of 1929. A brief resurrection of the mania occurred 65 years later in Istanbul, and while it was not the financial obsession Holland experienced, it led to the creation of standards in flower shape and increased the development of new types. You don't need to be obsessed to enjoy this book--an interest in tulips, history, and the futures market ensures that this will be a remarkable read. --Jill Lightner
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