Rating: 
Summary: Excellent read and History Lesson
Review: We have all heard of the "Spice Islands'. Yet few of us know where they are, what islands make up the Spice Islands, and why they were so important. Yet wars were fought over the control of these small, and otherwise insignificant spots of land, spots that took people nine months to reach in the days of sail.Even fewer of us know the part North America played in the war between the Dutch and the English over the Spice Islands. And I won't give away the ending of the main story in this review. To find out, you'll have to read the book! One of the best parts of this book is at the very end, where the Author describes his travels to the Spice Islands today. the difficulity of getting there, and what the inhabitants are doing today. most history books would not have touched upon this, but Milton does an admirable job. Well worth the time to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Can an island be worth THAT much?
Review: We take things for granted now that people 400 years ago did not. A sack of peppercorn, cloves or nutmeg could have made a man's fortune then, whereas it is commonplace today. Why? The laws of supply and demand, with these commodities coming from the Spice Islands of the East Indies (sometimes known as the Spiceries), far removed from Western Europe where the demand was. Nutmeg was more difficult still, most coming from the remote Banda Islands within the same large group.
Nathaniel Courthope is the man from the title. Strangely enough, the book is not just about him, but about the extra-ordinary struggles of those of the time (roughly 1560 - 1630) to obtain spice. Voyages were very dangerous: pirates, legal pirates (i.e. governments), diseases a-plenty, storms and rocks were some of the many obstacles in the way of the redoubtable men who journeyed from Europe. There was almost a state of war between Britain and other nations (principally the Dutch) in the East Indies for a number of years. Some treachery and dubious torture methods were employed - not all I may add perpetrated against the British; the United Kingdom was responsible for some of the questionable acts.
The absorbing account is told using a great deal of source material, much of this in hardly readable 16th and 17th century language. The reader may learn something of the discovery of Hudson Bay, or the person of Peter Stuyvesant (after whom a brand of cigarettes is named). Above all, he will appreciate the courage in the face of danger of the aforementioned Nathaniel Courthope. For more than four years Courthope and his crew (their ship rendered un-sea worthy, and with little food and water) defended the tiny nutmeg-rich island of Run in the Banda Islands against the Dutch, who controlled the rest of the small group. Courthope himself was finally either shot, or took his own life on the point of capture at sea, by treachery, as one inhabitant of the besieged island betrayed his plans to seek assistance from the natives of Great Banda.
The lasting legacy of Courthope was not the spice trade in the area; that has all but ceased, and the islands in the Banda group are once again an international backwater. It is more the development of the spice trade elsewhere (using nutmeg trees stolen from Run) - and of course the trading of the island that Courthope so steadfastly defended for another island half a world away that was to gain greater prominence in the world. The name of that other island? None other than Manhatten!
Peter Morgan, Bath, UK (morganp@supanet.com)
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