Tulipmania

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Tulipmania

Author : Anne Goldgar
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226301303
Total Pages : 458 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (263 download)

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Book Synopsis Tulipmania by : Anne Goldgar

Download or read book Tulipmania written by Anne Goldgar and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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

Famous First Bubbles

Author : Peter M. Garber
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262571531
Total Pages : 180 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (715 download)

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Book Synopsis Famous First Bubbles by : Peter M. Garber

Download or read book Famous First Bubbles written by Peter M. Garber and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2001-08-24 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The jargon of economics and finance contains numerous colorful terms for market-asset prices at odds with any reasonable economic explanation. Examples include "bubble," "tulipmania," "chain letter," "Ponzi scheme," "panic," "crash," "herding," and "irrational exuberance." Although such a term suggests that an event is inexplicably crowd-driven, what it really means, claims Peter Garber, is that we have grasped a near-empty explanation rather than expend the effort to understand the event. In this book Garber offers market-fundamental explanations for the three most famous bubbles: the Dutch Tulipmania (1634-1637), the Mississippi Bubble (1719-1720), and the closely connected South Sea Bubble (1720). He focuses most closely on the Tulipmania because it is the event that most modern observers view as clearly crazy. Comparing the pattern of price declines for initially rare eighteenth-century bulbs to that of seventeenth-century bulbs, he concludes that the extremely high prices for rare bulbs and their rapid decline reflects normal pricing behavior. In the cases of the Mississippi and South Sea Bubbles, he describes the asset markets and financial manipulations involved in these episodes and casts them as market fundamentals.

Early Speculative Bubbles and Increases in the Supply of Money

Author :
Publisher : Ludwig von Mises Institute
ISBN 13 : 1610164555
Total Pages : 147 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis Early Speculative Bubbles and Increases in the Supply of Money by :

Download or read book Early Speculative Bubbles and Increases in the Supply of Money written by and published by Ludwig von Mises Institute. This book was released on 2009-03-16 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Housing Bubble was hardly the first in human history. What's eluded historians is the same issue that eludes commentators today: the underlying cause of bubbles. This book is the first (and only) book to solve the mystery of the most famous bubble in world history: Tulipmania in 17th century Netherlands. It Is a legendary event but explanations have been lacking. People blame irrational exuberance, free markets, and an unleashed aristocracy. Douglas French takes a different route: he follows the money to prove that the bubble resulted from a government intervention that dramatically exploded the money supply and fueled the tulip-price bubble – not altogether different from modern bubbles. This book was French’s Master’s thesis written under the direction of Murray Rothbard and examining three of the most famous speculative bubble episodes in history through the lens of Austrian Business Cycle Theory. Although each of these episodes is well documented, this book examines the monetary interventions that engendered each of these events showing that not only the Mississippi Bubble and the South Sea Bubble were caused by government meddling, but Tulipmania was as well. Tulipmania was unique in that it was the sound money policy of the Dutch combined with free coinage laws that led to an acute increase in the supply of money and fostered an atmosphere that was ripe for speculation and malinvestment, manifesting itself in the intense trading of tulip bulbs. The author examines not only the Mississippi Bubble but also the life and monetary theories of its architect, John Law. Professor Joe Salerno calls Law the world’s first macroeconomist who implemented a Keynesian monetary system in France nearly two hundred years before Keynes was born. At the same time across the English Channel, a nearly bankrupt British government looked on with envy at Law’s system, believing that he was working a financial miracle. It was anything but this and investors in both countries were devastated. Although these episodes occurred centuries ago, readers will find the events eerily similar to today’s bubbles and busts: low interest rates, easy credit terms, widespread public participation, bankrupt governments, price inflation, frantic attempts by government to keep the booms going, and government bailouts of companies after the crash. When will we learn? We first have to get cause and effect in history straight. This book is an excellent contribution to that effort.

Tulipomania

Author : Mike Dash
Publisher : Hachette UK
ISBN 13 : 178022057X
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (82 download)

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Book Synopsis Tulipomania by : Mike Dash

Download or read book Tulipomania written by Mike Dash and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2011-05-12 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A fascinating exploration of human greed and self-delusion and also a tribute to our ageless search for beauty' DEBORAH MOGGACH. In 1630s' Holland thousands of people, from the wealthiest merchants to the lowest street traders, were caught up in a frenzy of buying and selling. The object of the speculation was not oil or gold, but the tulip, a delicate and exotic bloom that had just arrived from the east. Over three years, rare tulip bulbs changed hands for sums that would have bought a house in Amsterdam: a single bulb could sell for more than £300,000 at today's prices. Fortunes were made overnight, but then lost when, within a year, the market collapsed. Mike Dash recreates this bizarre episode in European history, separating myth from reality. He traces the hysterical boom and devastating bust, bringing to life a colourful cast of characters, and beautifully evoking Holland's Golden Age.

Tulip Fever

Author : Deborah Moggach
Publisher : Dial Press
ISBN 13 : 0307423417
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Tulip Fever by : Deborah Moggach

Download or read book Tulip Fever written by Deborah Moggach and published by Dial Press. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sensual tale of art, lust, and deception—now a major motion picture In 1630s Amsterdam, tulipomania has seized the populace. Everywhere men are seduced by the fantastic exotic flower. But for wealthy merchant Cornelis Sandvoort, it is his young and beautiful wife, Sophia, who stirs his soul. She is the prize he desires, the woman he hopes will bring him the joy that not even his considerable fortune can buy. Cornelis yearns for an heir, but so far he and Sophia have failed to produce one. In a bid for immortality, he commissions a portrait of them both by the talented young painter Jan van Loos. But as Van Loos begins to capture Sophia's likeness on canvas, a slow passion begins to burn between the beautiful young wife and the talented artist. As the portrait unfolds, so a slow dance is begun among the household’s inhabitants. Ambitions, desires, and dreams breed a grand deception—and as the lies multiply, events move toward a thrilling and tragic climax. In this richly imagined international bestseller, Deborah Moggach has created the rarest of novels—a lush, lyrical work of fiction that is also compulsively readable. Seldom has a novel so vividly evoked a time, a place, and a passion. Praise for Tulip Fever “Sumptuous prose . . . reads like a thriller.”—The New York Times Book Review “An artful novel in every sense of the word . . . deftly evokes seventeenth-century Amsterdam’s vibrant atmosphere.”—Los Angeles Times “Need a brief escape into a beautiful and faraway world? Deborah Moggach’s wonderful Tulip Fever can offer you that.”—New York Post “Taut with suspense and unexpected revelations.”—Entertainment Weekly “Elegantly absorbing.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Tulipmania Legend

Author : Peter M. Garber
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 76 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis The Tulipmania Legend by : Peter M. Garber

Download or read book The Tulipmania Legend written by Peter M. Garber and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Botany of Desire

Author : Michael Pollan
Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN 13 : 0375760393
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (757 download)

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Book Synopsis The Botany of Desire by : Michael Pollan

Download or read book The Botany of Desire written by Michael Pollan and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2002-05-28 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Pollan shines a light on our own nature as well as on our implication in the natural world.” —The New York Times “A wry, informed pastoral.” —The New Yorker The book that helped make Michael Pollan, the New York Times bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind, Cooked and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, one of the most trusted food experts in America Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires—sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control—with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, we have also done well by them. So who is really domesticating whom?

History of Greed

Author : David E. Y. Sarna
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 0470601809
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (76 download)

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Book Synopsis History of Greed by : David E. Y. Sarna

Download or read book History of Greed written by David E. Y. Sarna and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-09-07 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The “greater fool” theory of economics states that it’s possible to make money by buying paper (securities), whether overvalued or not, and later, selling it at a profit because there will always be an even greater fool willing to pay the higher price. Many described in this book profited by peddling such worthless junk to foolish investors. But for some people—Bernie Madoff, Norman Hsu, Sholam Weiss, and “Crazie Eddie” Antar, aka the “Darth Vader of Capitalism”—overvalued securities were not enough. Outright fraud was their way of life. History of Greed is the compelling inside story of the names you know—Charles Ponzi, Baron Rothschild, Lou Pearlman—and the names you don’t—Isaac Le Maire, the world’s first “naked” short-seller. It’s also our story—why we ignore the lessons of the past and fall prey, most every time, to the promise of easy money. For thousands of years, alchemists unsuccessfully tried to turn worthless base metals into gold. Where science failed at turning nothing into something, business succeeded. Sometimes we praise the creators of derivatives, collateral debt obligations, subprime mortgages, credit default swaps, or auction rate securities as Wall Street’s new financial wizards, the creators of “magic paper.” Other times, we vilify and prosecute them as scam artists. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell who is who. History of Greed reveals the inside secrets of how the markets really work, and how scam artists abuse them to gain an unfair edge or to outright steal. It describes how luftgescheft (“air business”), wizardry, dishonesty, and fraud are used to swindle people. Along with a comprehensive bibliography, History of Greed also details: 400 years of financial fraud—from everyday fraud to the odd and unusual Accounting fraud (phantom sales), stock option fraud (backdating), auction rate securities, hedge fund fraud, Ponzi schemes, promotion fraud (pump-and-dump scams), and money laundering How to detect fraudulent schemes How government regulation only fixes yesterday’s problems If it’s too good to be true, it probably is. If they say you can’t lose, you probably will. History of Greed shows that there really is no such thing as a free lunch, while also detailing how not to become the “greater fool.”

Tulip Mania

Author : Charles River Charles River Editors
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN 13 : 9781721938964
Total Pages : 92 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (389 download)

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Book Synopsis Tulip Mania by : Charles River Charles River Editors

Download or read book Tulip Mania written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-06-26 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes contemporary accounts *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading If one were to glide over the Dutch countryside via helicopter in the springtime, the beauty below them would seem almost surreal. The rolling rectangular fields are composed of immaculately neat, horizontal stripes in vibrant swatches of scarlet, pink, lavender, cream-white, and midnight-blue. The ethereal sight is even more breathtaking when one takes a stroll along these fields, surrounded by endless carpets of bright color. These world-famous three-petal, three-sepal flowers, all craning their necks towards the dazzling sun, are none other than Dutch tulips. The Netherlands is now the world's leading commercial producer of tulips, shipping out more than 3 billion of these colorful beauties each year. Standard tulips, depending on where one is based, typically sell for anywhere between $1.00 to $3.50 USD per stem today. They are a creative alternative to roses, lilies, and other traditional flowers. Needless to say, like every other floral breed, special tulips - such as hybrids, or ones with unique, multi-colored streaks and patterns - will cost buyers a pretty penny, but a bouquet is certainly not going to break the bank. Legend has it, however, that this was not always the case. As a matter of fact, these delightful "harbingers of spring" were supposedly once so rabidly sought-after that it wasn't just more valuable than gold - men threw themselves into financial ruin all for the sake of attaining just one of these sacred flowers. At the crescendo of what is now remembered as "Tulip Mania," or the "Tulip Craze," a single, shallot-like bulb of an unripe tulip was worth 20 times the annual salary of a skilled laborer. This aggressively volatile period, marked by convoluted and careless market speculation, inevitably culminated in the disastrous bursting of one of the world's first financial bubbles, an example of the perils of herd mentality. But how much truth is there to this oft-repeated story of the Tulpenmanie, really? Tulip Mania: The History and Legacy of the World's First Speculative Bubble during the Dutch Golden Age analyzes the legendary mania, and whether it was as dramatic as portrayed. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Tulip Mania like never before.

Speculative Bubbles, Speculative Attacks, and Policy Switching

Author : Robert P. Flood
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262061698
Total Pages : 528 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (616 download)

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Book Synopsis Speculative Bubbles, Speculative Attacks, and Policy Switching by : Robert P. Flood

Download or read book Speculative Bubbles, Speculative Attacks, and Policy Switching written by Robert P. Flood and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The papers in this book are grouped into three sections: the first on price bubbles is primarily financial; the second on speculative attacks (on exchange rate regimes) is international in scope; and the third, on policy switching, is concerned with monetary policy.

Bursting the Bubble: Rationality in a Seemingly Irrational Market

Author : David F. DeRosa
Publisher : CFA Institute Research Foundation
ISBN 13 : 1952927110
Total Pages : 206 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (529 download)

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Book Synopsis Bursting the Bubble: Rationality in a Seemingly Irrational Market by : David F. DeRosa

Download or read book Bursting the Bubble: Rationality in a Seemingly Irrational Market written by David F. DeRosa and published by CFA Institute Research Foundation. This book was released on 2021-04-02 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The presence of speculative bubbles in capital markets (an important area of interest in financial history) is widely accepted across many circles. Talk of them is pervasive in the media and especially in the popular financial press. Bubbles are thought to be found primarily in the stock market, which is our main interest, although bubbles are said to occur in other markets. Bubbles go hand in hand with the notion that markets can be irrational. The academic community has a great interest in bubbles, and it has produced scholarly literature that is voluminous. For some economists, doing bubble research is like joining the vanguard of a Kuhnian paradigm shift in economic thinking. Not so fast. If bubbles did exist, they would pose a serious challenge to neoclassical finance. Bubbles would contradict the ideas that markets are rational or work in an informationally efficient manner. That’s what makes the topic of bubbles interesting. This book reviews and evaluates the academic literature as well as some popular investment books on the possible existence of speculative bubbles in the stock market. The main question is whether there is convincing empirical evidence that bubbles exist. A second question is whether the theoretical concepts that have been advanced for bubbles make them plausible. The reader will discover that I am skeptical that bubbles actually exist. But I do not think I or anyone else will ever be able to conclusively prove that there has never been a bubble. From studying the literature and from reading history, I find that many famous purported bubbles reflect inaccurate history or mistakes in analysis or simply cannot be shown to have existed. In other instances, bubbles might have existed. But in each of those cases, there are credible rational explanations. And good evidence exists for the idea that even if bubbles do exist, they are not of great importance to understanding the stock market.

Business Cycles and Depressions

Author : David Glasner
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136545204
Total Pages : 796 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (365 download)

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Book Synopsis Business Cycles and Depressions by : David Glasner

Download or read book Business Cycles and Depressions written by David Glasner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 796 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts define, review, and evaluate economic fluctuations Economic and business uncertainty dominate today's economic analyses. This new Encyclopedia illuminates the subject by offering 323 original articles on every major aspect of business cycles, fluctuations, financial crises, recessions, and depressions. The work of more than 200 experts, including many of the leading researchers in the field, the articles cover a broad range of subjects, including capsule biographies of leading economists born before 1920. Individual entries explore banking panics, the cobweb cycle, consumer durables, the depression of 1937-1938, Otto Eckstein, Friedrich Engels, experimental price bubbles, forced savings, lass-Steagall Act, Friedrich hagen, qualitative indicators, use of macro-econometric models, monetary neutrality, Phillips Curve, Paul Samuelson, Say's law, supply-side recessions, James Tokin, trend and random wages, Thorstein Veblen, worker-job turnover, and more.

The Tulip

Author : Anna Pavord
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1526602679
Total Pages : 534 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (266 download)

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Book Synopsis The Tulip by : Anna Pavord

Download or read book The Tulip written by Anna Pavord and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-11-14 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revised and updated edition of the internationally bestselling classic Anna Pavord's now classic, internationally bestselling sensation, The Tulip, is not a gardening book. It is the story of a flower that has driven men mad. Greed, desire, anguish and devotion have all played their part in the development of the tulip from a wild flower of the Asian steppes to the worldwide phenomenon it is today. No other flower carries so much baggage; it charts political upheavals, illuminates social behaviour, mirrors economic booms and busts, plots the ebb and flow of religious persecution. Why did the tulip dominate so many lives through so many centuries in so many countries? Anna Pavord, a self-confessed tulipomaniac, spent six years looking for answers, roaming through eastern Turkey and Central Asia to tell how a humble wild flower made its way along the Silk Road and eventually took the whole of Western Europe by storm. Sumptuously illustrated from a wide range of sources, this irresistible volume has become a bible, a unique source book, a universal gift and a joy to all who possess it. This beautifully redesigned edition features a new Preface by the author, a revised listing of the best varieties of this incomparable flower to choose for your garden and a reorganised listing of tulip species to reflect the latest thinking by taxonomists.

A History of Global Consumption

Author : Ina Baghdiantz McCabe
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317652649
Total Pages : 341 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (176 download)

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Book Synopsis A History of Global Consumption by : Ina Baghdiantz McCabe

Download or read book A History of Global Consumption written by Ina Baghdiantz McCabe and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-08-27 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In A History of Global Consumption: 1500 – 1800, Ina Baghdiantz McCabe examines the history of consumption throughout the early modern period using a combination of chronological and thematic discussion, taking a comprehensive and wide-reaching view of a subject that has long been on the historical agenda. The title explores the topic from the rise of the collector in Renaissance Europe to the birth of consumption as a political tool in the eighteenth century. Beginning with an overview of the history of consumption and the major theorists, such as Bourdieu, Elias and Barthes, who have shaped its development as a field, Baghdiantz McCabe approaches the subject through a clear chronological framework. Supplemented by illlustrations in every chapter and ranging in scope from an analysis of the success of American commodities such as tobacco, sugar and chocolate in Europe and Asia to a discussion of the Dutch tulip mania, A History of Global Consumption: 1500 – 1800 is the perfect guide for all students interested in the social, cultural and economic history of the early modern period.

The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)

Author : Alexandre Dumas
Publisher : Delphi Classics
ISBN 13 : 1786569051
Total Pages : 183 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (865 download)

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Book Synopsis The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) by : Alexandre Dumas

Download or read book The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) written by Alexandre Dumas and published by Delphi Classics. This book was released on 2017-07-17 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘The Black Tulip’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Collected Works of Alexandre Dumas’. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Dumas includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily. eBook features: * The complete unabridged text of ‘The Black Tulip’ * Beautifully illustrated with images related to Dumas’s works * Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook * Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

Hana in the Time of the Tulips

Author : Deborah Noyes
Publisher : Candlewick Press
ISBN 13 : 9780763618759
Total Pages : 40 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (187 download)

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Book Synopsis Hana in the Time of the Tulips by : Deborah Noyes

Download or read book Hana in the Time of the Tulips written by Deborah Noyes and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A little girl seeks to regain her father's attention during the tulipomania craze in seventeenth-century Holland.

Devil Take the Hindmost

Author : Edward Chancellor
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0452281806
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (522 download)

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Book Synopsis Devil Take the Hindmost by : Edward Chancellor

Download or read book Devil Take the Hindmost written by Edward Chancellor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2000-06-01 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively, original, and challenging history of stock market speculation from the 17th century to present day. Is your investment in that new Internet stock a sign of stock market savvy or an act of peculiarly American speculative folly? How has the psychology of investing changed—and not changed—over the last five hundred years? In Devil Take the Hindmost, Edward Chancellor traces the origins of the speculative spirit back to ancient Rome and chronicles its revival in the modern world: from the tulip scandal of 1630s Holland, to “stockjobbing” in London's Exchange Alley, to the infamous South Sea Bubble of 1720, which prompted Sir Isaac Newton to comment, “I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.” Here are brokers underwriting risks that included highway robbery and the “assurance of female chastity”; credit notes and lottery tickets circulating as money; wise and unwise investors from Alexander Pope and Benjamin Disraeli to Ivan Boesky and Hillary Rodham Clinton. From the Gilded Age to the Roaring Twenties, from the nineteenth century railway mania to the crash of 1929, from junk bonds and the Japanese bubble economy to the day-traders of the Information Era, Devil Take the Hindmost tells a fascinating story of human dreams and folly through the ages.