Ebook442 pages10 hours
Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age
By Anne Goldgar
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
In the 1630s the Netherlands was gripped by tulipmania: a speculative fever unprecedented in scale and, as popular history would have it, folly. We all know the outline of the story—how otherwise sensible merchants, nobles, and artisans spent all they had (and much that they didn’t) on tulip bulbs. We have heard how these bulbs changed hands hundreds of times in a single day, and how some bulbs, sold and resold for thousands of guilders, never even existed. Tulipmania is seen as an example of the gullibility of crowds and the dangers of financial speculation.
But it wasn’t like that. As Anne Goldgar reveals in Tulipmania, not one of these stories is true. Making use of extensive archival research, she lays waste to the legends, revealing that while the 1630s did see a speculative bubble in tulip prices, neither the height of the bubble nor its bursting were anywhere near as dramatic as we tend to think. By clearing away the accumulated myths, Goldgar is able to show us instead the far more interesting reality: the ways in which tulipmania reflected deep anxieties about the transformation of Dutch society in the Golden Age.
“Goldgar tells us at the start of her excellent debunking book: ‘Most of what we have heard of [tulipmania] is not true.’. . . She tells a new story.”—Simon Kuper, Financial Times
But it wasn’t like that. As Anne Goldgar reveals in Tulipmania, not one of these stories is true. Making use of extensive archival research, she lays waste to the legends, revealing that while the 1630s did see a speculative bubble in tulip prices, neither the height of the bubble nor its bursting were anywhere near as dramatic as we tend to think. By clearing away the accumulated myths, Goldgar is able to show us instead the far more interesting reality: the ways in which tulipmania reflected deep anxieties about the transformation of Dutch society in the Golden Age.
“Goldgar tells us at the start of her excellent debunking book: ‘Most of what we have heard of [tulipmania] is not true.’. . . She tells a new story.”—Simon Kuper, Financial Times
Related to Tulipmania
Related ebooks
Temptation in the Archives: Essays in Golden Age Dutch Culture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House Of Medici: Its Rise and Fall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Merchant Kings: When Companies Ruled the World, 1600--1900 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Another Hungary: The Nineteenth-Century Provinces in Eight Lives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTudors: The History of England Volume II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From Revolt to Riches: Culture and History of the Low Countries, 1500–1700 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRevolution: The History of England Volume IV Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rembrandt's Jews Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Search of a Kingdom: Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the Perilous Birth of the British Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Venice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sleepwalking into a New World: The Emergence of Italian City Communes in the Twelfth Century Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Education of Henry Adams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inventing the World: Venice and the Transformation of Western Civilization Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Venice: Lion City: The Religion of Empire Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Renaissance Art: A Beginner's Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Feud That Sparked the Renaissance: The Feud That Sparked The Renaissance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Vanishing Velázquez: A 19th Century Bookseller's Obsession with a Lost Masterpiece Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Scribble, Scribble, Scribble: Writing on Politics, Ice Cream, Churchill, and My Mother Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Time Travelers: Victorian Encounters with Time and History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe American Future: A History Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzo de' Medici Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Borgias and Their Enemies, 1431–1519 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Complete (1555-84) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Endless Periphery: Toward a Geopolitics of Art in Lorenzo Lotto's Italy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings149 Paintings You Really Should See in Europe — The Netherlands, Belgium, and Sweden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe History of the Port of London: A Vast Emporium of All Nations Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
European History For You
Dry: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quite Nice and Fairly Accurate Good Omens Script Book: The Script Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Violent Abuse of Women: In 17th and 18th Century Britain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Six Wives of Henry VIII Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mein Kampf: English Translation of Mein Kamphf - Mein Kampt - Mein Kamphf Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Victorian Lady's Guide to Fashion and Beauty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Celtic Mythology: A Concise Guide to the Gods, Sagas and Beliefs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jane Austen: The Complete Novels Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Law Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 2]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of English Magic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 – 1066 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Very Secret Sex Lives of Medieval Women Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Reviews for Tulipmania
Rating: 3.6875 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
8 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An examination of the Dutch economy of the Reformation through tracing the currency of tulips.
Book preview
Tulipmania - Anne Goldgar
Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1