Nathaniel's Nutmeg: How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History

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As you'll have gathered, this is about the spice trade, about which we have some hazy notion ("ah yes, the spice trade") but which repays a closer look. One penn'orth of nutmeg in the East Indies went for 50 shillings in London - that's a 60,000 per cent mark-up, I think - so imagine the incentive for greed, treachery, freebooting and murder. The stories are terrific, and Milton has trawled through the records (primary research - maximum respect) to intoxicating effect. The East India Company used to be a turn-off at school but if they'd told us just how gloves-off this capitalism could be the kids' attention would have been guaranteed. In 1614 he was accused of purloining company resources and other offences by one dying man named, Edward Langley. [3] The story ends with a moral; a somewhat ironic one. The British defeat at the hands of the Dutch was resolved by Run going to the Dutch and Manhattan (which had been colonized by the Dutch West India Company) going to the British; setting in motion a chain of events that would lead to the establishment of the greatest city the world has ever known. The prize for which so many died is now worthless, while the consolation prize, a piece of land nobody cared for, is now the richest place on earth – built not by violence at the service of looters but by the power of unbridled innovation and uncoerced (read free) trade.

GILES MILTON About — GILES MILTON

This was the period of the Spice Wars; when the British, the Portuguese and the Dutch engaged in frantic searches for a safer route to the Spice Islands (in what is now Indonesia) and a protracted conflict with the locals and each other over control of the world’s spice supply. The Spaniards for a time also sought a role in the spice trade, but their search for a westward route to the islands led them to the New World where they became distracted by the rape of a continent.

About Joel D. Hirst

Both the Dutch East India Company and the English East India Company were para-state organizations; with charters from their Kings which encouraged the greed and bloodlust of corruptible men to engage in plunder, in piracy, in genocide, in colonization, in ethnic cleansing, in torture and in the construction of monopolies held by violence. This is the story of pre-enlightenment mischief sanctioned by absolute rulers for the enrichment of a few. Giles Milton was born in 1966. He was educated at Latymer Upper School and the University of Bristol, where he read English. His nonfiction books include Nathaniel's Nutmeg, Big Chief Elizabeth, Samurai William, The Riddle and the Knight, White Gold, Paradise Lost, Wolfram, Russian Roulette, Fascinating Footnotes from History. He is also the author of three novels, The Perfect Corpse, According to Arnoldand Edward Trencom's Nose.

Nutmeg (The Diary of Samuel Pepys) Nutmeg (The Diary of Samuel Pepys)

The Timesdescribed Milton as being able ‘to take an event from history and make it come alive’, while The New York Timessaid that Milton’s ‘prodigious research yields an entertaining, richly informative look at the past.Nathaniel Courthope: Oxford Biography Index entry". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press . Retrieved 12 August 2010. Over all the Spice Islands, Run was the most coveted – covered as it was from one end to the other with Nutmeg trees; trees that would grow nowhere else. At that time Nutmeg was thought to cure the plague; and was the most valuable commodity in the world. Ratnikas, Algirdas J. "Timeline Indonesia". Timelines.ws. Archived from the original on 10 July 2010 . Retrieved 12 August 2010.