A favorite with reviewers and readers nationwide, Tulipomania--now in paperback--is the true Story of how a beautiful Flower shaped Western history, from the medieval courts of the Ottoman sultans to the futures markets of Holland\'s Golden Age.
This colorful cast of characters includes Turkish sultans, Yugoslav soldiers, French botanists, and Dutch tavern keepers--all centuries apart historically and worlds apart culturally, but with one thing in common: 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.
Historians would come to call it tulipomania.
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.
The object of this unprecedented speculation was the tulip, a delicate and exotic Eastern import that had bewitched horticulturists, noblemen, and tavern owners alike.
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 were caught up in an Extraordinary frenzy of buying and selling.
A vivid narration of 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.
A favorite with reviewers and readers nationwide, Tulipomania--now in paperback--is the true Story of how a beautiful Flower shaped Western history, from the medieval courts of the Ottoman sultans to the futures markets of Holland\'s Golden Age
