The Spice Ports: Mapping the Origins of the Global Sea Trade

The spice trade was one of the first international trades, bringing flavors to new lands in exchange for gold, driving imperialism and colonialism, and inspiring exploration.

Compiled by a former BBC journalist who is an avid collector of maps, The Spice Ports examines how trade developed between far-flung lands. It also reveals how different cultures began to understand–and misunderstand–each other and the world between them, largely emphasizing the European participants to whose maps the author has had the most access.

Chapters address pivotal players and places, such as Venice, Alexandria, Goa and the Malabar Coast, Malacca and the Malay world, SIngapore, and Cape Town and Mauritius.

The maps here are supplemented by other period illustrations and the occasional photograph, including a model of a fifteenth-century Chinese sailing ship and an 1853 image of Port Louis in Mauritius, its inner harbor crowded with sailing ships.

Nugent pays close attention to the many side effects of the trade. For instance, when Portugal followed Spain in forcing Jews to convert, some fled the country along the new trade routes to India. Genoa’s attempts to take over Venetian trade routes may have distracted Venice from the threat posed by the rise of the Ottoman Empire.

A fascinating book, easy to dip in and out of and sure to inspire further curiosity.

Hardcover. Color images throughout