[.ca] Nathaniels Nutmeg (ISBN 0140292608)

From Amazon.com:
Would you believe that nutmeg formed the basis of one of the most bitter international conflicts of the 17th century, and was also intimately connected to New York City's rise to global preeminence? Strange but true: nutmeg was, in fact, one of the most prized commodities in Renaissance Europe, and its fascinating story is told in Giles Milton's delightful Nathaniel's Nutmeg. The book deals with the competition between England and Holland for possession of the spice-producing islands of Southeast Asia throughout the 17th century. Packed with stories of heroism, ambition, ruthlessness, treachery, murder, torture, and madness, Nathaniel's Nutmeg offers a compelling story of European rivalry in the tropics, thousands of miles from home, and the mutual incomprehensibility which often comically characterized relations between the Europeans and the local inhabitants of the prized islands. At the center of the action lies Nathaniel Courthope, a trusty lieutenant of the East India Company, who took and held the tiny nutmeg-producing island of Run in the face of overwhelming Dutch opposition for more than five years, before being treacherously murdered in 1620. To avenge his death, and the loss of the island, the British took the Dutch North American colony at Manhattan. (As Milton wittily remarks, although Courthope's death "robbed England of her nutmeg, it gave her the biggest of apples"). Inevitably inviting comparisons with Dava Sobel's Longitude, Nathaniel's Nutmeg is a charming story that throws light on a neglected period of European history, and analyzes its fascination with the "spicy" East. --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk

A fascinating tale of adventure, but is it accurate history?:
Because I am neither English nor Indonesian nor Dutch, Giles Milton's tale of the epic struggle for control over the Spice Islands came to me as a historic revelation: I've never heard of the story before and the plot could have as well been set on Mars or some other remote planet. As far as the book's genre was concerned, it could easily be classified as adventure or science fiction, and not necessarily popular history. The author got away with picking up a fairly obscure topic that makes him almost immune from any criticism. Giles Milton may be saying perfect truth or may be lying shamelessly, but whatever he says most readers won't be able to contradict because they don't know any better. That is an extraordinarily advantageous position for any author to be in. Many excellent books are published in Russian, so when I inconvenience myself and read in English (or other foreign language), I do so for the sake of cultural and linguistic adventure. Nathaniel's Nutmeg is both. It is an exotic and exiting story, that in many ways feels like one of the classic adventure novels by Alexandre Dumas or Robert Louis Stevenson. The author quotes from (supposedly) historic English texts liberally, keeps the original spelling, and this adds some linguistic spice to his work. Like his nineteenth literary predecessors, Giles Miles paints an uncomplicated black and white world with a broad brush. It is the world where the good guys (the English) struggle against the villains (the Dutch and everybody else). The Dutch are depicted as rapacious, treacherous, duplicitous, cruel race while the English are honest, human, chivalrous, and noble. The Dutch enslave natives and bring them misery while the English are the heralds of freedom who despise the idea of conquest and cherish liberty, and live off fair and honest free trade. Arabs and other Muslim "darkies" are expectedly portrayed as trash. They are wicked and treacherous. When the natives of Spice Islands are pressed against the wall by the wicked Dutch oppressors, poor wretches ally themselves with the British and even petition Nathaniel and other personages to become British subjects only to be slaughtered or sold to slavery to the last man by the evil Netherlanders. The goodness of the English is overwhelming while the evil of their enemies is equally awesome. Now and then this nationalist nonsense goes too far and may strike unbiased reader as outrageous, obscene stuff, but I think it shouldn't, - the book is about entertainment and should be read as such. Five stars.

Swashbuckling tales...:
I've recently been reading spice-themed books and this one takes the cake as far a swashbuckling tales of merchants-turned-pirates, pirates-turned-merchants and the deadly struggle between the Spainsh, Portugese, English and the Dutch to control the main source of spices. Nathaniel himself only makes an apperance towards the end of the book... but it takes a through and exciting explination of the earlier history to truly understand his heroisim. This book reads like a novel yet, it's all true! The pages are interspersed with captain's log entries, letters and vivid descriptions of the voyages and lands visited on the dangerous journey (1/3 died on the way there, and 1/3 died on the way back) to the spice islands.

Five stars is not enough!:
Most of us know how important the spice trade was in initiating the age of exploration. But there exists surprisingly few books dealing with this aspect! Anyway, this is the book! My brother lent it to me. He said he could not put it down, and it turned out that neither could I! The book centres around a small island group called the Bandas. They were the world's only source of nutmeg - a spice worth more than its weight in gold. One ship in three was lost, usually about fifty percent of the crews perished during the journey. Still, if one ship every third year made it with a load of nutmeg its owners would make enourmous profits, and still have money to finance the next expedition. The trade, and its spin-offs, shaped world history - sometimes in unexpected ways. Competition was fierce between the English and Dutch. Vicious wars were fought, where the vanquished were treated without mercy. The whole story is told in this little book. There are plenty of characters, heroes like the sailor and soldier Courthope, villains like the Dutch governor Speult, and fools like the failed navigator Willoughby. There is more action than in a Verhooven movie, there is drama and great tragedy. in short, not too be missed.

Excellent read and History Lesson:
We have all heard of the "Spice Islands'. Yet few of us know where they are, what islands make up the Spice Islands, and why they were so important. Yet wars were fought over the control of these small, and otherwise insignificant spots of land, spots that took people nine months to reach in the days of sail. Even fewer of us know the part North America played in the war between the Dutch and the English over the Spice Islands. And I won't give away the ending of the main story in this review. To find out, you'll have to read the book! One of the best parts of this book is at the very end, where the Author describes his travels to the Spice Islands today. the difficulity of getting there, and what the inhabitants are doing today. most history books would not have touched upon this, but Milton does an admirable job. Well worth the time to read.

A well-written history of Run:
The only failure of this book is that it is putting too much of an emphasis on the remotest island of the Banda group (where the English were most involved), even though the rest of the archipelago was actually more important. So those inspired to get the full picture should also read the more thoroughly-written "Indonesian Banda" by W.A.Hanna which gives a more complete and balaced account of the history of these islands.