You can see the future first in Amsterdam. Over the past year, the talk of the town has shifted from a few guilders for common bulbs to hundreds for rare varieties to fortunes for flowers that have not yet bloomed. Every few months another zero is added to the contracts. Behind the scenes, there is a fierce scramble to secure every garden plot, bulb, greenhouse, and promise of a future harvest still available. Dutch capital is gearing up to pour its accumulated wealth into a long-unseen mobilization of botanical genius. By the end of the season, Holland will no longer be a country that merely grows flowers, but the financial and civilizational center of the world: every field will be an exchange, every household a trading house, every citizen a speculator, and the humble tulip will become the foundation upon which the entire Dutch economy, and perhaps the future of human prosperity itself, is built.