The Tulip: The Story of a Flower That Has Made Men Mad
By Anna Pavord
3.5/5
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About this ebook
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.
Anna Pavord
Anna Pavord is the gardening correspondent for THE INDEPENDENT and the author of widely praised gardening books including PLANT PARTNERS and THE BORDER BOOK. She wrote for the OBSERVER for twenty years, has contributed to COUNTRY LIFE, ELLE DECORATION and COUNTRY LIVING, and is an associate editor of GARDENS ILLUSTRATED. For the last thirty years she has lived in Dorset, England where she is currently making a new garden. Constantly experimenting with new combinations of flowers and foliage, she finds it a tremendous source of inspiration.
Read more from Anna Pavord
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Reviews for The Tulip
58 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I picked this book up at the Smithsonian because The Botany of Desire is one of my favorite books and includes a section on tulips which I found to be especially interesting. Pavord's account of the tulip is very interesting although it, for me at least, moves a bit slowly. I've found myself having difficulty finishing it, but I don't think that is a reflection on the subject.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5A history of the domestication of the tulip and its spread into western Europe, with the subsequent explosion in popularity as it entered new regions. This book contains quite a bit of interesting information about the growth and fashion of tulips when they were first introduced as garden plants, as well as history of the layout and fashion of gardens in general, however it is slow-moving and somewhat repetitive. Part of this I believe is due to trying to expand the subject matter to fill more pages than it needs to be covered adequately, part due to the choice of dividing chapters by country or region and chronicling the flower's rise to - and fall from - the height of fashion in each one; the similarity in each region leads to a lot of "didn't I just read this?"
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A great history of the flower.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I read some parts of this book but it was a bit heavy going, so I am afraid that I will be passing it on unfinished.