Anne Goldgar

In the 1630s the Netherlands was gripped by tulipmania: a speculative fever unprecedented in scale and, as popular history would have it, folly. We all know the outline of the story—how otherwise sensible merchants, nobles, and artisans spent all they had (and much that they didn’t) on tulip bulbs. We have heard how these bulbs changed hands hundreds of times in a single day, and how some bulbs, sold and resold for thousands of guilders, never even existed. Tulipmania is seen as an example of the gullibility of crowds and the dangers of financial speculation. But it wasn’t like that. As Anne Goldgar reveals in Tulipmania, not one of these stories is true. Making use of extensive archival research, she lays waste to the legends, revealing that while the 1630s did see a speculative bubble in tulip prices, neither the height of the bubble nor its bursting were anywhere near as dramatic as we tend to think. By clearing away the accumulated myths, Goldgar is able to show us instead the far more interesting reality: the ways in which tulipmania reflected deep anxieties about the transformation of Dutch society in the Golden Age. “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

Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age

Tulipmania

Hanneke Grootenboer

Marisa Anne Bass

Claudia Swan

A captivating historical look at the cultural and artistic significance of shells in early modern Europe Among nature’s most artful creations, shells have long inspired the curiosity and passion of artisans, artists, collectors, and thinkers. Conchophilia delves into the intimate relationship between shells and people, offering an unprecedented account of the early modern era, when the influx of exotic shells to Europe fueled their study and representation as never before. From elaborate nautilus cups and shell-encrusted grottoes to delicate miniatures, this richly illustrated book reveals how the love of shells intersected not only with the rise of natural history and global trade but also with philosophical inquiry, issues of race and gender, and the ascent of art-historical connoisseurship. Shells circulated at the nexus of commerce and intellectual pursuit, suggesting new ways of thinking about relationships between Europe and the rest of the world. The authors focus on northern Europe, where the interest and trade in shells had its greatest impact on the visual arts. They consider how shells were perceived as exotic objects, the role of shells in courtly collections, their place in still-life tableaus, and the connections between their forms and those of the human body. They examine how artists gilded, carved, etched, and inked shells to evoke the permeable boundary between art and nature. These interactions with shells shaped the ways that early modern individuals perceived their relation to the natural world, and their endeavors in art and the acquisition of knowledge. Spanning painting and print to architecture and the decorative arts, Conchophilia uncovers the fascinating ways that shells were circulated, depicted, collected, and valued during a time of remarkable global change.

Shells, Art, and Curiosity in Early Modern Europe

Conchophilia

Inger Leemans

This book researches the development of knowledge economies in Early Modern Europe. Starting with the Southern and Northern Netherlands as important early hubs for marketing knowledge, it analyzes knowledge economies in the dynamics of a globalizing world.

Early Modern Knowledge Societies as Affective Economies

Tulipmania, an Overblown Crisis?

Flower Power

Robert I. Frost

This volume offers new insights into the self-perceptions, strategies, and rituals through which early modern institutions functioned. Its wide range and its comparative vision of the nature of institutions prompts a new interpretation of the role of institutions in society. With contributions by Florence Hsia, Ian Anders Gadd, Gayle K. Brunelle, Christopher Carlsmith, Susan E. Brown, Victor Morgan, Steve Hindle, Janelle Day Jenstad, Eve Rosenhaft, Reed Benhamou, James Shaw, Kristine Haugen.

Institutional Culture in Early Modern Society

"A history of shells in early modern Europe, and their rich cultural and artistic significance"--

During the period immediately preceding the Enlightenment, scholars throughout Europe located themselves within an informal social and cultural community. The members of this Republic of Letters traveled to meet each other, exchanged letters, contributed to scholarly journals, and helped with the publication of other scholars' work. In this book, Anne Goldgar examines the everyday interactions of the scholars and the values that underpinned their society. She argues that the pressures of the marketplace and the popularity of the new, competing Enlightenment literature diverted the older community's attention from the content of debates and toward the manner in which they were conducted. This tendency intensified an earlier reluctance to turn away from the personal communal structure to a more professional, academic society. Inferring ideas about cooperation through recorded instances of conflict, Goldgar looks at often amusing stories of plagiarism, theft, insult, and impersonation. These stories illuminate the fundamental academic ethos of obligation; the Republic's attempts, not always successful, to reorganize and professionalize the community, notably through literary journals; the basis of scholarly hierarchy and the ideal career path toward intellectual prominence; and the difficulties, in an international and non-denominational community, of dealing with the realities of religious and political division within Europe. In a final chapter, Goldgar presents a slant on the difficult transition from the old erudition to the Enlightenment.

Anne Goldgar

About

Books

Join the club