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were identified to great effect.I loved this book with its brave, treacherous, exotic characters all the way through.I hardly put it down.Don't be put off. The author has chosen to illuminate a period of burgeoning capitalism about which the general public - me included - know relatively little.Correctly, the history of the spice trade, in the far-east, the major players, etc. Read it.Arty Scott I read a report on this novel which ofered a criticism to effect that Nathaniel didn't appear till half way through the novel. This should be igored.
Each voyage begins with a brief introduction of what was known about the captain, ship and crew, then describes what went wrong during the voyage (and usually things went very wrong). There isn't really much of a theme here, except to reiterate how lucrative the spice trade was at the time. After getting through half the book, I skipped to the later parts and put it away.
240.I think there was a good book in this material, but apparently Mr. From what I can tell, the author's intent is to give example after example of British pluck, moving forward against daunting odds and all that. Milton's editor couldn't get up the nerve to ask for a re-write.
I give the author 2 stars for taking on an interesting topic and having done exhaustive research in a difficult area (very few documented narratives, and many of those destroyed at sea or over time). The book's title character doesn't get introduced until around page 200 (out of 375 pages) and doesn't dominate the narrative until p. That's why the English lost the war with the colonies (among other reasons), and why I'm so disappointed with this book.
It is a linear timeline of voyages by English entrepeneurs to get a piece of the spice trade that was dominated by the Dutch and Portuguese. There is a quaint quote from someone's journal along the lines of "nearley the entyre crewe dyed frome the bloody fluxe".
Milton's inept handling of the writing makes it a long and boring read. We don't even meet Nathaniel Courthope until half way through the book and he is a rather pitiful hero, who admittedly steals from his own company. Still with all this fascinating data at hand, Milton forces the reader to suffer through his poor writing style. I call it 'Connecticut Nutmegger' because like the nutmeggers, who were peddlers from Connecticut who would sell small carved nobs of wood shaped to look like nutmeg to unsuspecting customers, Milton tries to sell us his book as a special look at an interesting piece of 'history.'Here is a story that should be fascinating. A style, which detracts from the immensely interesting story of the 17th century spice trade. He seemed to have very little to do with the discovery, cultivation, or promotion of the spice, but Milton chooses him as the hero of this story. I have added an extra star to my review; because, had I not read this book, I would never have known of the little island of Run.
Milton likes to end every paragraph with quotations from the original reference, in the difficult language and grammatical construction of the time; complete with the strange spelling. But he never proves his case that Courthope was someone who changed the course of history. Milton covers the venality of the VOC (Dutch East Indies Company) and British East India Company extremely well. This slows the reading down considerably. It is a hodge podge of information about European sea voyages to the South Pacific looking for spices and why economically they mattered so much.
(One of my favorite books is "Salt: A World History"). It is true hyperbole to try to convince the reader that Nathaniel is a 'spice trader who changed the course of history."All in all, with good editing this book could have been written in 200 pages. Why the book is called "Nathaniel's Nutmeg" is a bit of a mystery, except that a British factor spent several years on Run Island fighting the Dutch. It seems to be one sea voyage following another. It took me several tries to understand that by 'Pooloway' and 'Poolaroone' he was talking about Pulau (Indonesian for Island) Ai and Pulau Run.While we don't learn anything about how native populations responded to the European conquerers or what the natives thought of them, we do get a true feeling for the evil and sadism of these colonists, both British and Dutch.
Maybe it is a declaration of Courthope's courage and determination to quell Dutch uprisings for four years which eventually led to the land swap five decades later ().A good read, and above all a most informative study of these contested times. Nonetheless, the rivalry between these two countries is taut, fierce and intricately detailed. I, like a few reviewers, fail to make the connection between the author's leading character Nathaniel Courthope and the ultimate land exchange fifty years later of Manhattan for Run Island. An energized look into the harrowing spice race of the seventeenth century. Nutmeg grew only on one tropical island and it was called Run.The author diligently takes the reader through the cut-throat competition between the English and Dutch for possession of not only Run but also other Spice Islands. Spices were a valuable commodity during this time period, especially nutmeg which was allegedly the panacea for the plague and other medical ailments. Some chapters are very descriptive of torture and mistreatments of prisoners and may not be for the squeamish.
Reading this book takes focus (not the kind of thing you can read when you're tired or watching TV at the same time) but I enjoyed learning so much about the spice trade. It's a short book jam packed with characters and voyages. I have to say though that I could have used a time line in the begining to help me keep things straight.
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