“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

“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

“Goldgar’s book establishes a new benchmark--the first since 1637--for interpretations of the tulip mania. It largely fulfills its ambitious interdisciplinary agenda, bringing to life the world of the seventeenth-century floristes.”

Jan de Vries | American Historical Review

“As Anne Goldgar gently informs us in the beginning of her absorbing book, most of what we ’know’ about tulip mania is pure fiction.”

Ingrid D. Rowland | New Republic

“Goldgar persuasively demolishes most of the myths and exaggerations surrounding this affair. . . . [She] treats it as a microhistorical lens through which we can learn much about the society and culture of the young Dutch Republic. . . . Cultural history at its best.”

Christine Kooi | Sixteenth Century Journal

“Goldgar’s research can hardly be bettered. . . . [The] book is the most authioritative study on the subject and it will be the statutory starting point for fresh research.”

Karel Davids | The Historian

“Goldgar’s examination of the role of value and the new ways social status, trust, and expertise interacted in judgments concerning value in a mercantile culture should have important repercussions for the history of science, art, economic thought, social history, and studies of the emerging public sphere.”

Vera Keller | History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences

“Goldgar’s book is much more than just a deconstruction of popular myth in history; it is a magnificent reconstruction of the mentality of the upper middle class in the Dutch Republic. . . . A fascinating and indeed convincing reconstruction of the tulip craze. It is well-researched, beautifully written and splendidly produced.”

Klaas van Berkel | European History Quarterly

“Anne Goldgar’s detailed analysis of vast archival material brings anew picture of tulipmania to the surface by reconstructing the events as if you were looking through a microscope. It reveals the myth of tulipmania, which was soon created after tulipmania itself.”

Journal of Medieval History