[rjmunro]

I think Freakonomics basically debunked the whole tulips thing. The real Tulip mania was much smaller but stories of it got exadgerated as they passed around the world. Actual business records of the claims in contemporary newspapers don't exist.

[nologic01]

There seems to be currency with debunking tulipmania but reading this [1] it seems people play more with the semantics, i.e., what kind of market behavior do you admit into the "manic class" as opposed to the "rational calculation class".

Expecting others to enter a bubble and trading accordingly can be a perfectly rational calculation following observations of behaviors in a given market context.

[1] https://theconversation.com/tulip-mania-the-classic-story-of...

[daemin]

I like the way Patrick Boyle explained it, about how gossip got blown out into bigger than life stories. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1dbtWZFsIk

[tim333]

Also the Dutch still have a large tulip business. Maybe they were overpriced for a bit but the tulips go on.

It could have been rational to spend a lot on a good one as you could then cultivate it a grow lots of that type.