Well-researched, history of the tulip from early beginnings.

This book tells the story of the famous tulip craze in seventeenth-century Holland. Tulips first appeared in Europe in 1559, and soon attracted the interest of botanists and horticulturists throughout the continent. What’s interesting is that tulips were seen as desirable before the craze. Even after their initial introduction, they remained rare enough to be expensive. Many wealthy people with country houses liked to show off their wealth by planting tulips, and there were also wealthy tulip connoisseurs who simply loved the flowers for their beauty. Because they were actually interested in the flowers, they continued to pay large sums for true rarities close to a hundred years after the crash.

One thing I didn't realize before reading this was that the tulip craze mostly involved the poor and ambitious; the wealthy never got involved and tulips were never traded on the Dutch stock exchange (and over three hundred other commodities were). The tulip dealers for the most part were not professionals but amateurs who conducted their business in taverns. Tulip growers and dealers would arrange to meet as a group two or three times a week in a tavern’s private back room to buy and sell, as well as talk, drink, and smoke tobacco (after reading some of this I was surprised it wasn’t something else). They would celebrate each deal with large pitchers of wine, and as the craze accelerated the meetings might begin in the morning but not end until early the next morning. This explains a lot about both the nature and the excesses of the mania: One seldom makes rational decisions while partying with friends late into the night with lots of alcohol on hand.

The fact that the craze was most prevalent among low-income amateurs also explains why a financial calamity with such a reputation that it is often compared to the 1929 stock market crash had very few short-term or long-term repercussions, with the exception of Holland’s bulb industry and postcard-perfect tulip farms. Indeed, the crash had almost no effect on the Dutch economy – neither the Dutch stock exchange nor Dutch trade was impacted, and no general recession followed.

I appreciated the table at the beginning of the book that provided the 1636 prices of other common (and not so common) items, such as a loaf of bread and a Rembrandt painting, as well as some average incomes for various professions, which helped immensely in giving perspective to the prices people were willing to pay for tulip bulbs. But the book was crying out for pictures of the flowers - while the varieties the Dutch prized no longer exist, illustrated bulb catalogs do (and some famous Dutch painters were involved in making them), and so do period still-life paintings of tulips:

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This book tells the story of the famous tulip craze in seventeenth-century Holland. Tulips first appeared in Europe in 1559, and soon attracted the interest of botanists and horticulturists throughout the continent. What’s interesting is that tulips were seen as desirable before the craze. Even after their initial introduction, they remained rare enough to be expensive. Many wealthy people with country houses liked to show off their wealth by planting tulips, and there were also wealthy tulip connoisseurs who simply loved the flowers for their beauty. Because they were actually interested in the flowers, they continued to pay large sums for true rarities close to a hundred years after the crash.

One thing I didn't realize before reading this was that the tulip craze mostly involved the poor and ambitious; the wealthy never got involved and tulips were never traded on the Dutch stock exchange (and over three hundred other commodities were). The tulip dealers for the most part were not professionals but amateurs who conducted their business in taverns. Tulip growers and dealers would arrange to meet as a group two or three times a week in a tavern’s private back room to buy and sell, as well as talk, drink, and smoke tobacco (after reading some of this I was surprised it wasn’t something else). They would celebrate each deal with large pitchers of wine, and as the craze accelerated the meetings might begin in the morning but not end until early the next morning. This explains a lot about both the nature and the excesses of the mania: One seldom makes rational decisions while partying with friends late into the night with lots of alcohol on hand.

The fact that the craze was most prevalent among low-income amateurs also explains why a financial calamity with such a reputation that it is often compared to the 1929 stock market crash had very few short-term or long-term repercussions, with the exception of Holland’s bulb industry and postcard-perfect tulip farms. Indeed, the crash had almost no effect on the Dutch economy – neither the Dutch stock exchange nor Dutch trade was impacted, and no general recession followed.

I appreciated the table at the beginning of the book that provided the 1636 prices of other common (and not so common) items, such as a loaf of bread and a Rembrandt painting, as well as some average incomes for various professions, which helped immensely in giving perspective to the prices people were willing to pay for tulip bulbs. But the book was crying out for pictures of the flowers - while the varieties the Dutch prized no longer exist, illustrated bulb catalogs do (and some famous Dutch painters were involved in making them), and so do period still-life paintings of tulips:

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Fascinating account of a remarkable episode. Some maps and illustrations would have helped. ( )

When economists need to summon an age of unchecked speculation and financial fecklessness, the Dutch tulip mania is at the top of the list. If you’re not familiar with the story, it’s an early example of the vagaries of the stock market. In the mid-1630s, the Dutch fell in love with tulips. The flower became a status symbol, and the Dutch were all but tripping over each other in a race to conspicuously consume. To satisfy burgeoning demand, speculators began to trade in what were essentially tulip futures; these grew outlandishly complicated and expensive, and on the third of February, 1637, the tulip market collapsed.

The book begins with a history of the origins and cultivation of the tulip in the Ottoman Empire and how it came to be introduced in the Netherlands by botanist Carolus Clusius, who established an extensive garden at the University of Leiden.

The demand for tulips of a rare species increased so much in the year 1636, that regular markets for their sale were established on the Stock Exchange of Amsterdam, in Rotterdam, Harlaem, Leyden, Alkmar, Hoorn, and other towns. The tulip-jobbers speculated in the rise and fall of the tulip stocks. People of all grades converted their property into cash, and invested it in flowers. Houses and lands were offered for sale at ruinously low prices, or assigned in payment of bargains made at the tulip-mart.

This book was an interesting story of botany and greed and what can happen when the latter triumphs. ( )