The Spice Race
Jun. 2nd, 2024 11:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiBook Review: Nathaniel's Nutmeg - How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History, by Giles Milton
This was a surprise Christmas present, so I approached it with an open mind. For the most part, the book is about the battle between European powers - principally the English and Netherlands East India companies, though the Spanish and Portuguese also feature - during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in their hunt for and conquest of the Spice Islands in what is now mostly Indonesia. Nutmeg in particular was sought after, promised to ward off the all too regular bouts of plague and other diseases rampant at the time. Various ventures were proposed; as well as the journeys around Africa and India, there are chapters on the unsuccessful expeditions to find North-East and North-West passages.
Beyond the sense of adventure, the other thing that emerges is the sense of lawlessness. It feels like the book has a bit of a focus on English piracy in particular, though other nations' seafarers probably engaged in that too. If you had better weaponry it was fair game to stop and plunder another ship's cargo. In the islands themselves, each company sought to carve out exclusive deals with the indigenous populations for the spice trade, and on this count it is the Dutch who are reported as being especially barbarous, both to indigenous populations and to other European traders.
It's an interesting and worthwhile read, but I think the author is stretching things a bit with the title. For one thing, said Nathaniel Courthope has a relatively small role in the book; for another, connecting that causally to the final twist in the tale feels a bit dubious.
This was a surprise Christmas present, so I approached it with an open mind. For the most part, the book is about the battle between European powers - principally the English and Netherlands East India companies, though the Spanish and Portuguese also feature - during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in their hunt for and conquest of the Spice Islands in what is now mostly Indonesia. Nutmeg in particular was sought after, promised to ward off the all too regular bouts of plague and other diseases rampant at the time. Various ventures were proposed; as well as the journeys around Africa and India, there are chapters on the unsuccessful expeditions to find North-East and North-West passages.
Beyond the sense of adventure, the other thing that emerges is the sense of lawlessness. It feels like the book has a bit of a focus on English piracy in particular, though other nations' seafarers probably engaged in that too. If you had better weaponry it was fair game to stop and plunder another ship's cargo. In the islands themselves, each company sought to carve out exclusive deals with the indigenous populations for the spice trade, and on this count it is the Dutch who are reported as being especially barbarous, both to indigenous populations and to other European traders.
It's an interesting and worthwhile read, but I think the author is stretching things a bit with the title. For one thing, said Nathaniel Courthope has a relatively small role in the book; for another, connecting that causally to the final twist in the tale feels a bit dubious.