I am supporting Kirsten's nomination TulipoMania: The Story of the World’s Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions it Aroused. I have been interested in tulips since reading Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire which looks at the history of four plant-foods: potatoes, marijuana, apples, and tulips as world-wide commodities. The breadth of TulipoMania is intriguing in that it presents a commodity web that takes the reader from the Netherlands through Asia and to the Ottoman Empire. Like The Colour of Paradise this book will give us a chance to move beyond the Atlantic world and augment our understanding of how commodities influenced Asian as well as world markets. A second reason I'd like the class to read this book is because of the quick and dirty demise of the tulip trade. Examining the repercussions of this market disaster on the branches of the commodity web provides a unique chance for our class to autopsy the remains of the web, if the book goes that far. I for one am ready for a "well-written adventure story" that takes us from smoky European taverns to misty Tai Shan mountains and the glittering court of the Ottoman Sultan. Nice job on the book summary, Kirsten.
-Susan
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