Comment by scyclow
4 hours ago
This is a fun book, but it famously embellishes, exaggerates, and sensationalizes the tulip bubble [1]. The efficient markets people obviously don't like the story, but there doesn't seem to be much evidence that it happened on the same scale that Mackay portrays it.
Yes a lot of it was based on anti tulip propaganda pamphlets that circulated at the time, and survived more because they were more interesting due to the exaggerated stories.
>Peter Garber argues that the trade in common bulbs "was no more than a meaningless winter drinking game, played by a plague-ridden population that made use of the vibrant tulip market."
So basically, it was the GameStop of the 1630s. Humans never change.