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Title: The Scents of Eden: A History of the Spice Trade by Charles Corn ISBN: 1-56836-249-8 Publisher: Kodansha International Pub. Date: April, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.73 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: He who is Lord of Malacca has Venice by the Throat
Comment: Thus goes the old saying which aptly summarised the politics and economics of the renaissance spice trade. Charles Corn's splendid narrative of the spice trade seeks to explain the forces which inspired Western Europeans to commit acts of bravery and madness in pursuit of nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and pepper. Provided you didn't get yourself either killed by the weird island Sultans of the various East Indies, or robbed by a rival merchant fleet, the spice trade offered profits well in excess of 1000%. The spice trade started with Portugal's efforts to win control of Malacca (in modern Malaysia); it continued with the establishment of the two rival East India Companies (Dutch and English respectively), who fought control of the Banda island group. (At that time, Banda had the world's monopoly on nutmeg, the King of Spices.) Corn has visited the Banda group (modern Indonesia) and as a result, his descriptions of these once-prized possessions has a sure sense of place. Also enjoyable are the later chapters dealing with the American intrusion into the spice trade, which, as Corn notes, was closely linked to the American slave trade. "Scents of Eden" complements another recent tale of pirate-capitalism, "The Power of Gold."
Rating: 3
Summary: An Inconsistent History of the Spice Trade
Comment: Charles Corn's "The Scents of Eden" seeks to document the history of the spice trade, focusing on the control of a few key islands in the East Indies where the historically most valuable spices (notably cloves and nutmeg) originated. Corn's effort is a little spotty: I found him both interesting and readable in some places, and neither in many other places.
I think about 60% of this book presents interesting and relevant material, but the remaining 40% felt like filler to me. The portions of the book where Corn discusses the key spice-producing islands, their discovery and the imperialistic practices that controlled them, were generally very interesting, and read quickly and with satisfaction. Moreover, I found Corn's writing style generally pleasant to read, and appropriate (or at least acceptable) for "popular" history. The early chapters were among the better ones.
However, Corn doesn't seem to have enough material to make all 319 pages interesting, or perhaps the topic just isn't robust enough for that much book. Either way, I found many chapters off topic, and felt like I was suffering through a droning lecture. For example, Corn provides long descriptions of Amsterdam, London and Salem, none of which seemed more than peripherally relevant to me. More irritating was a rather gratuitous description of Dutch atrocities to both native inhabitants and other pesky Europeans (most notably, the English). While these seemed well documented (among the best documented material Corn presents), I thought he'd made his point adequately in earlier discussions of the topic, and this elaboration didn't seem to add anything to the book.
For my money, "The Scents of Eden" isn't polished enough to make for a serious academic work, and isn't interesting or consistent enough to be top shelf "popular" history. While it had its moments, I found myself struggling through mediocre material in the later parts. And the abundance of chapters that I found off-topic made me question the significance of the entire subject. If you're considering reading this, you may enjoy the book somewhat, but I'd recommend something by Tuchman or Gleeson well ahead of this book.
Rating: 4
Summary: Fills in knowledge gap
Comment: Nice, interesting historical read. This book filled in a lot of gaps in my historical knowledge. The book is a nicely interwoven tale of various personas involved in the spice trade as well as the macro-history of this trade.
My only complaint is that at times the book would give overly-flowery descriptions within the historical context. I understand that this is done to make the book more readable, it just over does it at times. Or it could be that I'm being overly-critical because I read Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel right before reading this (Diamond's book does an absolutely perfect job of walking the line between readability and scientific rigor).
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Title: Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices by Andrew Dalby ISBN: 0520236742 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 07 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Nathaniel's Nutmeg by Giles Milton ISBN: 0140292608 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 03 July, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Tastes of Paradise : A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants by Wolfgang Schivelbusch ISBN: 067974438X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 29 June, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce 1450-1680: The Lands Below the Winds by Anthony Reid ISBN: 0300047509 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: April, 1990 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680: : Expansion and Crisis by Anthony Reid ISBN: 0300065167 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: August, 1995 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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