We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,564,799.86 | Books Available: 796,207 | Members Online: 234

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - Tulipomania : The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused

Tulipomania The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused
Author: Mike Dash

Amsterdam, 1637 — For the cost of a single tulip bulb you could buy: — four oxen or — twelve sheep or — twenty-four tons of wheat or — two hogsheads of wine or — two tons of butter or — four barrels of beer or — a thousand pounds of cheese or — a silver drinking cup or — an oak bed or — a ship. — In the 1630s, visitors to the prosperous trading ... more »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. A trade in tulips soon evolved, and 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 all the ones that would follow, it crashed spectacularly, plunging speculators and investors into economic ruin and despair. But that was not the first instance of tulipomania -- nor would it be the last.

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 whose lives were inextricably entwined with it. There is the eccentric Turkish sultan Ahmed III, whose reign even to this day is known as the Tulip Era, and the French academic Carolus Clusius, the most respected botanist of his time, whose gifts of the then-unknown bulbs to friends and patrons sparked the Dutch tulipomania. There's even the lowly tavern owner Wouter Winkel, whose death in 1633 left his seven children destitute -- until they dug up his bed of tulip bulbs and sold them at auction during the height of the tulip mania, an auction that transformed his heirs from penniless orphans to wealthy young men and women who would never have to work a day in their lives. Centuries apart historically, and worlds apart culturally, this cast of characters all had one thing in common: tulipomania.

ISBN-13: 9780609604397
ISBN-10: 0609604392
Publication Date: 2/29/2000
Pages: 288
Rating:

Currently 3.8/5 Stars.

3.8 stars, based on 4 ratings

Publisher: Crown
Book Type: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 1
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Genres:

Back to the Top ↑

Search - Tulipomania : The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused

Loading...