Nathaniel's Nutmeg

Fifty | Garden | Ninety | Twenty-Five

28 September 2022

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Giles Milton wrote an early history of the British East India Company and titled it Nathaniel's Nutmeg to personalize it. I guess the marketing people told him nobody would buy a book titled An Early History of the British East India Company. I would have, and might have gotten around to reading it sooner. As it was I picked up the book back in Tennessee at McKay's and it's been in my one of my tsundoku piles for at least half a dozen years. The story of the spice islands is very well written from a British perspective, but Nathaniel Courthope doesn't show up until over 200 pages in and then after a couple dozen more he's dead. TLDR: his role in obtaining a legal basis for the British ownership of Run island despite the Dutch conquering it led to a trade for Manhattan island which the British conquered in the Anglo-Dutch Wars. The book has a lot more detail than that though, and it really isn't the focus. Poor titling aside, I thoroughly enjoyed it and my only other complaint would be that it's Anglocentric. The Dutch are just bogeymen throughout.