“Tulipmania is in every way a model of historical scholarship, an exemplary piece of historical craftsmanship. Every page is rife with rich human detail, and Goldgar’s lively and elegant style carries the reader, enthusiasm and curiosity undimmed, to the stimulating conclusion. Above all, this is revisionist history of the best kind.”
(Anthony Grafton, Princeton University)
"This is wonderful book, beautifully written and sustained by archival scholarship of the highest order. Its devastating and original demolition of the myth of Tulip mania, the fineness of historical judgment and the painstaking reconstructions so effortlessly conveyed on the page make it a pleasure to read."
(John Brewer, author of A Sentimental Murder: Love and Madness in the Eighteenth Century)
“Anne Goldgar’s scholarly sleuthing gives a whole new look to the 1630s tulipmania in the Netherlands.The bulb buyers and sellers were good middle-class merchants, not so far removed from knowledgeable connoisseurs and art-lovers. The crash in prices undermined not the economy, but people's confidence in honor and good judgment. Delightfully written, Tulipmania turns the exaggerations of a media event into an exploration of early modern values and anxieties.”
(Natalie Zemon Davis)
"In this handsomely illustrated volume. . . . Goldgar provides a rich survey of the historiography of early modern European cultural and financial history along with a detailed account of the rise of tulip connoisseurship and trade. Some readers may find her interpretation—that participants in the tulip market were motivated more by connoisseurship and honor than pursuit of gain—to be overly subtle, but most will be impressed by Goldgar's thoroughness in examining primary sources. Highly recommended."
(
Choice)
"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)
"A standard reference for all historians whenever they deal with this episode in Dutch financial history."
(Larry Neal
EH.Net)
"What Anne Goldgar does in her provocative and lively new book is convincingly cast all of these existing narratives into questions. Drawing on extensive research in a wide range of archives . . . she shows that the tulip boom, far from representing a case of mass irrationality, was actually the product of intellectual, familial, and commercial networks among a relatively small and prosperous subset of Dutch burghers. . . . [The book] serves not only to rewrite a fascinating historical event, but to shed considerable light on the history or early modern commerce and culture more generally."
(Alix Cooper
Renaissance Quarterly)
"A brilliant young spoilsport of a historian . . . decided to examine the evidence rather than buy the legend. . . . This book is a gem. Elegantly and lucidly written, it debunks the myth of tulipmania once and for all."
(Richard Mawrey
Historic Gardens Review)
"In my view it is a wonderful and delightfully written book offering a totally new slant on the tulipmania in the Netherlands in the 1630s, when the bottom dropped out of the tulip bulb market in just a few days’ time."
(M.M.G. Fase
De Economist 2008-02-12)
"A meticulously researched study of the phenomenon that challenges all of the previously held ideas about the extent of this bubble. There can be no doubt that this well-written and engaging book will become the standard reference on the topic for years to come."
(Donald J. Harreld
H-Net Reviews)
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