Rating: 
Summary: Not terribly interesting.
Review: A meticulously researched book, but not one I found terribly interesting. The most interesting material tended to be background or related bits of history, but this did not comprise enough of the book. I had a little trouble with the biology of new species development: the explanation was all there, but perhaps just a little more leisurely discussion would have been helpful.
Rating:
Summary: Not terribly interesting.
Review: A meticulously researched book, but not one I found terribly interesting. The most interesting material tended to be background or related bits of history, but this did not comprise enough of the book. I had a little trouble with the biology of new species development: the explanation was all there, but perhaps just a little more leisurely discussion would have been helpful.
Rating: 
Summary: A remarkable corner of history
Review: A quick and most interesting read. Considering recent events in our own stock market this historical recount of greed and wild speculation in tulip bulbs over 300 years ago is quite timely. Businessman and history buff alike would enjoy this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: As a history buff, there is nothing more exciting than finding a well-written book on an aspect of history that I know nothing about. This book on the tulip wars or mania of the Netherlands is written with wit, style and surprising depth for such a short work. I read Tulipomania after reading Longitude, which I found rather disappointing with its extremely narrow focus, and its inability to make Harrison come alive as a human being (although I understand the author was hampered by lack of primary sources). Tulipomania makes these 16th and 17th century people come alive and seem relevant to our day (I'm thinking about the stock market fascination with all the dotcoms of the Internet). I would give the book 5 stars, except for it would have really benefited by some drawings of those wonderous flowers.
Rating:
Summary: Trading the Wind: Boom, Bust and Tulips
Review: As someone who has seen each of his shares in glorious Nortel plunge to penny stock levels in less than two years, I was hoping that there would not be too many parallels between the famous Dutch tulip craze of the 17th Century and today's deflated high-tech market to depress me even more. Mike Dash's "Tulipomania" is a fascinating, well-researched and most enjoyable account of a strange episode that must still embarrass the hard-working citizens of the Netherlands.The author traces the movement of this exotic but hardy plant from the Ottoman Empire to the heart of Europe. He covers not only the natural history and characteristics of the plant, but also the weird habits of its fanciers. For example, the Ottoman sultans delighted in gorgeous gardens as much as in cruelty. They employed their palace gardeners both to spruce the place up and as executioners. Senior officials condemned to death had the opportunity to have their sentences commuted to banishment if they could outrun the head gardener to the southern end of the Topkapi Palace grounds. The Dutch, on the other hand, at first appear as sobersided, dully-dressed folk when, it turns out, during the Golden Age they were obsessive gamblers and enthusiastic drunkards. From a tight circle of botanists and connoisseurs, the interest in tulips exploded as it became apparent that money could be made. Big money. A class of traders arose that first dealt in plants and bulbs and then, over time, into trading the rights to bulbs they did not own. This early form of futures trading was disparaged as "Windhandel," as ephemeral as the wind. The prices brought by bulbs when the mania was at its height can barely be imagined. A flower worth 3,000 guilders in December 1636 would have bought 8 pigs, 4 oxen, 12 sheep, 24 tons of wheat, 48 tons of rye, 2 hogsheads of wine, 4 barrels of beer, 2 tons of butter, a thousand pounds of cheese, a silver cup a pack of clothes, a bed with mattress, and a ship. Probably a small ship. The highest authenticated price for a bulb was 5,200 guilders. Of course, it was not to last. Within two months, prices had collapsed, everyone looked foolish and the lawsuits began. This sounds familiar. There were a few subsequent outbursts of flower mania but nothing to match the Dutch excesses. But in the same way the collapse in the prices of Barbie dolls or Beanie Babies or breeding lamas did not have much of an impact on the American economy, so too was tulipomania limited in its impact. This short book is equal parts entertainment and education. Mike Dash has combed original sources diligently and even the notes are worth browsing. You will probably never think about tulips (let alone Nortel shares) in the same way again.
Rating:
Summary: A very impressive piece of research
Review: I bought this book a few months ago, after reading the six-page paeon to it that appeared in Harper's, and it has been a revelation to me. It must be about 25 years now since I first heard of the tulip mania, and it struck me then as one of the most amazing historical stories I had heard. At that time I tried to find out as much as I could about it, and scoured libraries here and in Europe whenever I got the chance. Then I visited Holland and took the opportunity to look for information there. And the astonishing thing was, there wasn't any, at least for those who don't read Dutch. Charles Mackay's journalistic essay, written 150 years ago, was practically the only source in English. In fact, even the Dutch had only one book and a few ancient articles.
All credit, then, to Dr Dash, who has done an impressively thorough job of research in compiling everything that is known about some of the most remarkable events in modern history. The author has gone to Dutch archives, read the Dutch texts, and exhumed more English language sources than I believed could possibly exist - his bibliography runs to nearly 200 items - making this a genuinely authoritative study. But he has also managed to tell his story concisely and well. Tulipomania is not a particularly long book (274 pages), but it covers a huge amount of ground. The story begins in the mountains of Tien Shan (on China's border with central Asia) and moves from there to the Ottoman Empire, India, Vienna and finally the Netherlands. By giving his book such a broad focus, Dash is able to put the Dutch tulip mania, which forms the central part of the book and covers about two thirds of its pages, into its proper context. The contrasts between Turkish sultans (rich men who loved the flower for its beauty) and Dutch tulip traders (poor men who loved it for its rarity, and hence monetary value) are particularly well done.
Once the story moves to the Netherlands, we are introduced first to Carolus Clusius, the pioneer botanist who was largely responsible for spreading the flower widely throughout western Europe, and then to a succession of ever poorer tulip fanatics, starting with men such as Guillelmo Bartelotti (the second richest man in Holland) and ending with impoverished weavers by the names of Waermondt and Gaergodt. Dash's ability to exhume at least the basic details of these people's lives is particularly impressive, as the majority of them lived at the periphery of contemporary Dutch society and went unnoticed by contemporary chroniclers and record-keepers. The author goes on to explain the manner in which tulips affected all their lives and then to discuss the tulip mania itself, illustrating the amazing rise in prices (which often rose several hundred fold over the course of a year or two, and in some cases reached levels where single bulbs were more valuable than a house). Perhaps the most affecting section of the book is the central chapter titled 'The Orphans of Wouter Winckel', which tells how the seven orphaned children of an innkeeper from Alkmaar were saved from the workhouse by the sale of their dead father's hugely valuable collection of flower bulbs.
Really I thought that this book had something for everyone. Those who are interested in business and stock markets will find its examination of an early market bubble very interesting. Those who like narrative non-fiction will find it a very engaging read (witty, too). Those who are gardeners will enjoy the botanical background the and the descriptions of some of the most ravishing flowers ever grown. Those who, lile me, have a sneaking love for the more colourful pages of the history books will particularly treasure the author's coverage of the Ottoman Turks, and relish his tales of imperial circumcision ceremonies and the opulance of life in the palace called The Abode of Bliss. In conclusion, I would recommend this book very highly to anybody with more than a passing interest in history, botany or economics.
Rating: 
Summary: A Disappointment
Review: I just finished reading this wonderful book. Dash is a master story teller whose light tone and style make history come alive. The topic of economic bubbles is still very relevant today and this book describes how one of the very first documented bubbles started, peaked and abruptly burst. The book covers the history of the Tulip - from its origins in Eastern Asia, through its journeys to the court of the Turkish Sultan and its brief popularity with the French elite. The focus then shifts to the main and most exciting subject of the book - the Tulipomania that gripped the Dutch provinces in the closing months of 1636 and the early months of 1637. The author opens for the reader a window into the 17th century Dutch provinces. In addition to the discussion about the rise and fall of the Tulip as a valuable commodity the book also provides the reader with an understanding of the day to day life of local citizens, contemporary culture and political climate. My only (minor) complaint about the book is that while the author tries to provide specific, documented examples of the Tulipomania, he sometimes gets bogged down in tiresome detail and at other times draws conclusions from what appears to be insufficient information. Overall, this is a wonderful book that both enlightens and entertains. I would recommend this book to any reader interested in history, economics or human nature in general. This is a great book.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully elegant and lucid book
Review: I loved this book and thought I'd add a review as I suspect that some of the other reviewers may be comparing it a littlke unfairly to the works of Mr Schama or Ms Pavord (both of which I liked). As the title suggests this is a book about the tulipomania which gripped Holland between 1634 and 1637 - not about the history of Holland as a whole in that period or indeed about the tulip itself - and it is so elegantly written that it properly supplies a distant mirror to a period which increasingly reflects the dot.bomb phenomenon going on here. All I can say is that this is a lovely, salutary book - a rare pleasure in my view - and Mr Dash is also to be commended for making the lives of the people in it so real that I almost felt I knew them. This is also not the sort of book I usually read so the pleasure I found in it was unexpected. Great start to my New Year, anyway. Thank you Mr Dash!
Rating: 
Summary: Flat History
Review: I'm a history buff that discovered the tulip mania phenomenon and was eager to read an exciting, in-depth account of a truly fascinating piece of history. Mike Dash's non-fiction attempt, laden with cumbersome statistics and repeated points, was disappointing and impossible to read through as anything but research. The focus jumps around and is hard to follow or care about without any connecting characters or themes, and I was thoroughly disappointed overall with this book. Someone needs to get to work on a piece that does justice to this incredible time and place.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Read
Review: Many gardeners may believe that the Dutch "created" the tulip, or that, at the very least, it was native to the region. The truth is, as we can learn from Mike Dash, that botanists introduced tulips to the Dutch after discovering them growing wild in the valleys and oases of the Pamir Mountains in Russia and the Tien Shan that border China. Out of these harsh mountains in Asia, tulips flourished and were held in high esteem by the Ottoman's and are considered sacred in the religion of Islam. By the 16th century, tulips were already being cultivated in Turkish gardens, and in the 1530s, it is rumored, Lopo Vaz de Sampayo brought the tulip to Western Europe for the first time. Over the span of another hundred years of discovery and cultivation, the tulips we know today as "Dutch" tulips were being sought after with vigor. Beautiful varieties (created, in part, by a mosaic virus) were being bought for a small fortune - and the most rare bulbs could command sums of several years' salary. More a book of incredible sociological and economic history than botanical information, Dash gives an interesting glimpse of the importance of taverns to the tulip trade and explains with detail that tulip mania is one of the earliest cases of futures trading. Although Dash's writing is occasionally repetitive, his study is a quick, easy and interesting read that can be enjoyed by anyone interested in the history of the Netherlands in the 17th century, gardening, economy or sociology.
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