Petals of Credit

Tulip Mania began as beauty priced like certainty, then exposed how Dutch Golden Age finance could turn trust into danger. In 1637, bulbs were not merely flowers; they became promises, reputations, and imagined futures traded before spring had even arrived. Petals of Credit follows the social machinery behind the famous Dutch tulip bubble without reducing it to simple greed. It examines informal contracts, tavern auctions, merchant confidence, and the fragile authority of Amsterdam market culture. Prices rose because value was no longer tied only to rarity, but to belief shared by buyers, brokers, growers, and spectators. When confidence failed, the crisis became less a national ruin than a moral and legal rupture over obligation. Set within early modern European capitalism, this book treats Tulip Mania as a warning about credit before modern regulation. Its importance lies not in catastrophe, but in the moment a flower revealed how markets depend on imagination, trust, and fear.