Customer Reviews

Nathaniel's Nutmeg: Or the True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Put on your windbreaker and get a firm grasp on both arms of your easychair and get ready for a great adventure! This book is that good. It flies along at breakneck speed with never a dull moment. Mr. Milton has a wonderful style and he has obviously done a tremendous amount of research in putting this book together. There are a lot of quotes from the primary sources, which makes for very interesting reading as you get a"you are there" feel. Actually, Nathaniel Courthope, from the title of the book is only a relatively small, though integral, part of the story. Mr. Milton gives brief but vivid character sketches of many of the Dutch and English sailors, merchants and explorers who were involved in this long and bloody trade war. Also, the book is not confined to just talking about the East Indies. It moves around from England, Holland, India, etc. to the Arctic and the search for a Northeast Passage and to Manhattan and the Hudson River and the search for a Northwest Passage. One note for the squeamish: the participants in the fight for control of the nutmeg trade did not obey the Marquis of Queensbury's rules for fighting fair. The book is full of beheadings; people being keelhauled and drawn and quartered and there is a horrific chapter on English sailors being tortured by their Dutch captors that is worthy of the worst things done during the Spanish Inquisition. If your picture of the Dutch East India Company is one of fat and jolly pipe smoking burghers, think again!

I bought this book on a whim. It caught my interest in the bookshop because my wife is from Indonesia and I wanted to find out whether some of the terrible things she has told me the Dutch did in her country were true (I was to find out they were even worse than I expected). I also have an interest in British colonial history.

Much to my pleasant surprise I found this was a book I just couldn't put down. It was riveting! I suppose one could categorize this book as "popular history" because it reads much like a novel with many colorful characters and intriguing events that make up the early history of the English and Dutch East India companies, although its primary focus is on the former. I found the author's writing style to be very engrossing and easy to read, unlike many histories.

I became quite caught up in the excitement and horror of events, as described by Mr. Milton, but I had to keep reminding myself that the author is an Englishman. The obvious partisanship of the author was probably one of the weak points of the book: he made much reference to the crimes committed by the Dutch in the East Indies but, no doubt, the English traders had their fair share of rogues who committed other crimes - especially during the first half century of the English East India Company. It would be interesting to read a book on the same subject written by a Dutchman and compare and contrast!

However, to his credit, the author quite successfully shows how disorganized and irresponsible the directors of the East India Company could be, especially in regard to their choice of men to lead expeditions to the East. Many of the voyages the early traders made to the Indies were unsuccessful and resulted in the frequent loss of ships and men. Also, Milton shows that during the first 50 years of the company's operations, the traders and "factors" - company employees who had been given the task of developing trade at various (often remote) trading posts - tended to operate as individuals rather than team players so-to-speak, often with unpredictable and sometimes disastrous results to the detriment of the company.

One other point against the book is that the main subject of the book - referred to in the subtitle, the man who "changed the course of history" - does not have his story told until Chapter 10, near the end of the book. Every time I was introduced to a new character I asked myself whether he was going to be the one. Though, I suppose this is one way to keep the reader interested in events, and to keep reading.

However, despite these small drawbacks, I found this book to be thoroughly enjoyable and would whole heartedly recommend it to anyone interested in the early years of the English East India Company, the beginnings of British colonialism, and the spice trade. Oh, and by the way it also shows how New York and the East Indies were connected in terms of their founding. This book covers a lot of events in a relatively small number of pages but always manages to be interesting and enlightening. I am looking forward to reading Mr. Milton's next book, which should throw more light on early English colonialism in America.

For someone who tends to read novels, this refreshing and fascinating book about the discovery of, exploitation of, and fighting for the East Indian spice islands was a lovely hiatus for me. Although titled in honor of the British Nathaniel Courthope who managed to hold the Dutch off the tiny spice island of Run, the book only spends one chapter on him toward the end. One of the reasons for this seemingly skewed portrait of Courthope and his accomplishment is that his grip on the island of Run allowed the British to eventually trade it with the Dutch for the island of Manhattan (and let's face it, how many people have heard of Run and how many have heard of Manhattan!) The bulk of the book describes in detail the numerous and various voyages, battles, and wild 'transactions' between the British, Portuguese and Dutch in their fight for possession and control of the valuable spice-producing islands (what today are part of Malaysia, Indonesia and other smaller island nations in the South Pacific).

In general this is a fascinating and exciting tale - made more exciting by the fact that is was real - real history. Specifically, it was obvious that the author was British as the reader is led to believe that the Dutch and Portuguese were absolute barbarians when in fact, the British captains and crew were certainly not all tea and crumpet types either. I also had a little trouble with the author's tendency to jump back and forth between Atlantic and Pacific voyages, and mentioning protagonists in one chapter and bringing them back in subsequent chapters - it was sometimes hard to follow who was where when. The most impressive part of this book for me was the fact that the author must have had to read through thousands of very old diaries, letters, and other correspondance of the time to have built such a wonderfully complete tale of this period in history set in a place in the world very few people know a good deal about. Just wonderful.

When I was a lad at school, History was as dry as the paper it was written on - memorising numbers and names for no reason that I could discern. The books gave no insight, the teachers did their best, but it had no bearing on 'today'. This book is full of dates and names (the lifeblood of History), but every page is alive with the souls of those people who made History. Ostensibly the story of Nathaniel Courthope & nutmeg, we are halfway through the book before we meet him, all the previous pages are background build-up, in graphic detail, of what made the spice islands and in particular Run, such a focus of attention for the whole world. We are taken on a whirlwind journey across the centuries and round the globe, each chapter heralding the next with a snippet of information, like dangling bait, so one is eagerly waiting for the next chapter to unfold. This is not just a compilation of events and dates, the meticulous background research that went into this must have taken years; Giles Milton has studied every scrap of available material, in umpteen languges, specifically to flesh out the bones of what could have been another dusty tome. The heroes and villains of the piece are REAL people in this book, people you want to meet (or avoid!) and they are brought to life by the fluid style of Mr. Milton's prose - it drags you along with it, urging you to read faster and faster, ultimately having to stop for lack of mental breath - then off into the fray again. I cannot praise this too highly - a revelation for those who thought that history is bunk!

I loved this book- just loved it. Not only is the subject fascinating, it is well researched, beautifully written and a gripping story. Starting with literature such as Shakespeare and Chaucer, Milton sets the stage by taking us back to the fifteenth and sixteenth century to trace the use of nutmeg and spices in the Western world and to build a picture of its importance and popularity.

He then diversifies and constructs a deeply layered and satisfying picture of the historical development of the importation of Nutmeg to the west. In fact, for a long time no one in the west even knew where it came from at all. The Spice route was necessarily complicated and so would travel mysterious routes to reach Constantinople where the Venetian monopoly would bring it further west. The bizarre, sometimes hilarious (and usually tragic ) attempts to find and claim the Spice Islands followed and then the amazing and a courageous story of Nathaniel Courthorpe follows.

Milton's book is a beautifully written, he easily blends the diverse elements of the story, the political situation, the personalities, the competing countries and so on to build a profoundly satisfying and personal book. The detail in it is drawn out and only adds to the richness of the book. I really enjoyed his style and will search out "TheRiddle and the Knight', one of Milton's earlier books, next.

Nathaniel's Nutmeg reminded me a lot of two other gems of books I have read recently, 'The Arcanum' by Janet Gleeson and Dava Sobel's 'Longitude'. If you liked either of those books, then try this. (or if you liked this try either of these) The purpose behind all these books is that they take a small piece of history, something that was pivotal at the time, but has been long forgotten. In this case the finding of, and establishment of a colony for Nutmeg.

This is a book I will have great pleasure in re-reading regularly.

This was a great read...just the kind of history book that makes learning fun. Who would have thought that so much blood could be shed over what is today a relatively common spice -- nutmeg. During the 16th and 17th centuries, nutmeg was as valuable as gold and all the big players of Western Europe (Spain, Holland, and England) were eager to get in on the action. Eventually Spain dropped out of the race leaving England and Holland to wreak havoc upon each other and the natives of several South Pacific Islands. Milton's prose is wonderfully descriptive with a dash of dry, British humor in all the right places. Beware...this book is not for the soft-hearted as contains ample bloodshed and vivid torture scenes. The complete disregard that the Dutch and English had for the natives and the ecological balance of the islands can also be a bit shocking to the 21st century mind. But it is a worthwhile read nonetheless. The only thing I didn't understand was the title...Nathanial shows up towards the end of the book and although he's quite heroic, his is by no means the only story told.

This is a very good book that is also a surprisingly fast read. The author tells a fascinating story about the importance of the spice trade in the history of the world and about the inhumanity which characterized the Europeans' pursuit of the huge profits spices brought. Two points: (1) The book might have been improved, I thought, by the inclusion of a chronological outline: without writing one out myself while reading, I sometimes found it difficult to remember which expedition was under discussion, especially since expeditions to the East sometimes overlapped. (2) The title of the book suggests that the story will center around Nathaniel Courthope's doings in the East, but in fact the story the author tells is much broader in scope. For that reason I thought the name *Nathaniel's Nutmeg* misleading.

In addition to Dava Sobel's *Longitude,* which another reviewer mentioned, readers may also find interesting Tom Standage's *The Victorian Internet* and *The Professor and the Madman,* by Simon Winchester.

Reviewed by Debra Hamel, author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece

An excellently produced book about the Spice Trade, it nevertheless fails to live up to its title. Nathaniel Courthope doesn't really enter into the action until 3/4 of the way through the book and when he does, defending the tiny island of Run against those nasty Dutch, he's made out to be some sort of hero by the author (who seems to be ashamed that no monuments have been erected for this virtually unkown person). What is conveniently forgotten is the fact that Courthope was a PAID employee of an English Trading Company, and stood to gain financially if the island of Run remained in English hands. That's heroic? Furthermore, this book is a very one sided view of the Spice Trade, giving scant attention to what the natives of all these little spice producing islands thought about this European invasion.

In "Nathaniel's Nutmeg" Giles Milton has created an easily read history of the early spice trade. His central contention is that New York, originally founded by the Dutch, became English in exchange for the Dutch obtaining the rights to the Indonesian isle of Run, the prime source of nutmeg - and the English had the rights to this island through the heroic behaviour of trader Nathaniel Courthope. This is a bit ingenious, because at the time the swap was formalised in a treaty the English had already taken New York, and the Dutch had already taken Run. However, Milton does not overly stress this tenuous thesis, and the book is a great read.

Milton charts the history of the spice trade from the first attempts by the English and Dutch to find alternative routes to the Spice Islands via the North, through the founding of both countries' East India Companies to the clash between Portugese, Dutch, English and (lest we forget) Indonesians in the colonisation of the Indonesian archipelago. The book has sufficient detail to convey an impression of extensive research. It avoids being a "dry" read, though, with eye witness accounts of floundering discovery voyages, piracy, scheming and warfare, including torture scenes that as far as I was concerned I could have done without!

My problem with the book is that Milton has used an old ploy to make it a lively read: he has assigned a hero (Nathaniel Courthope) and his valiant companions (the English) fighting a dastardly enemy (the Dutch). This was at times hard to accept.

For instance, Milton describes in detail the first few English attempts to reach the Spice Islands and bring back spices, all of which failed. He then goes on to compare them with the Dutch who, within the same time frame, launched several fleets that by and large returned laden with spices - and manages to convey the impression that the English were the better mariners, just unlucky. Luck on either side had little to do with it; as in modern business, it was a matter of who made most money available to quickly establish a new venture.

The Dutch are painted throughout the book as cruel oppressors of the Indonesian people. One can't argue with that, but the English were little better - a cynical view might be that they just didn't have the same opportunity at mischief since the Dutch already held most trading posts. But I found it disturbing that after a particularly vicious torture scene in which an Indonesian is torn apart for alledgedly being involved in an attempt to burn an English trading post, Milton conveys the impression that whilst regrettable, it was not as bad as what the other guys did. Let's face it: both the Dutch and the English were out for profit, and would do whatever was necessary to get it. Unfortunately for the English, the Dutch were better organised in the early stages of the colonisation race, and that was basically the only difference between them.

Still, even as a former Dutchman (so much for my objectivity?) I enjoyed this book and the insight it gave me to the spice trade and colonisation of Indonesia. Recommended.

Where James Clavell's "Shogun" is fiction, "Nathaniel's Nutmeg" is fact. It was like reading an exciting piece of historical fiction in the James Clavell tradition while knowing it was all true. At times I was laughing at the pure humor of the book only to turn the page and be totally horrified by the shear brutality of those early spice traders. When I was finished with the book, I wanted find the nearest port, jump on a ship and sail for the East Indies to make my fortune. This is one of the best books I have ever read. If you love high seas adventure with a historical twist, this is the book for you.