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香料：以摩鹿加群島為中心，見證十六世紀形塑現代世界的權力地圖
最會說故事的歷史作家!!
「地中海三部曲」作者羅傑．克勞利又一令人讚嘆新作
氣勢磅薄、衝擊力十足!!
香料，十六世紀形塑現代世界的大競賽!!
香料史上的地理大發現
葡、西兩國遠東大對決
十六世紀最驚駭、刺激的海上長征
開啟強權帝國殖民序幕
專文推薦——
劉慧 (國立東華大學歷史學系助理教授)
讚嘆推薦——
孔令偉（中研院歷史語言研究所助理研究員）
江仲淵 （「歷史說書人History Storyteller」創辦人）
陳國棟（中研院歷史研究所教授）
陸大鵬（中國歷史書專業譯者）
康培德（國立臺灣師範大學臺灣史研究所教授）
本書將告訴你：
▎推動歐洲人探索東方的動力不是絲綢，而是香料
▎投效西班牙的葡萄牙人麥哲倫如何帶領探險隊經歷險惡航程
▎連結起香料史上第一個牽涉到的地緣政治經濟鏈
▎香料貿易促使世界貨幣統一為白銀，加速全球貿易開展
▎揭開強權帝國第一次向外擴張殖民的序幕
當香料開始遠航，帶動近代全球經濟發展，對歐洲人來說，這些香料象徵著前所未有的財富。丁香和肉豆蔻透過錯綜複雜的貿易路線抵達歐洲，而西班牙和葡萄牙的探險家們開始競相尋找香料的神祕來源。當葡萄牙人在一五一一年終於抵達摩鹿加群島的香料產地時，便展開激烈爭奪戰。摩鹿加群島成了一項帝國級的計畫，但也是一個在實務上因為距離過遠，國家無法有效管理或支持的計畫。此時，打開香料群島大門的金鑰匙，握在誰的手上，誰才是最後的贏家。
作者展示這場遠洋競逐如何塑造了現代世界。從一五一一年至一五七一年，歐洲列強開展海上航線，建立龐大的海上帝國，並催生全球貿易，所有的一切都是為了掌控香料供應。掌握香料，才是掌握經濟、權力。大航海時代雖然需要製圖學、地理學、天文學前往香料所在地，但實際上的「占有」才是獲取利益的重要手段。
打開地圖，從塞維亞的造船廠，航向太平洋的遼闊海域，來到印尼的火山香料群島、北極圈以及中國沿岸，本書呈現生動的目擊者紀錄，在冒險、船難和圍城的故事背後，同時也揭開了第一次殖民接觸的序幕，並重塑之後數個世紀的世界經濟。
【國際書評讚譽】
克勞利把每個歷史事件，都變成了引人入勝的故事，令人寒毛直豎的黑暗細節，在激越的情節推演中顯得劇力萬鈞。
──丹尼爾．布魯克斯，英國《電訊報》
文采與格局兼備的精采故事。
──多米尼克．桑德布魯克，《週日版泰晤士報》
克勞利以其穿針引線的能力，讓他的故事跨越時空，呈現出行雲流水的一面。他對於海上遠征的細緻描繪，尤其凸顯本書集冒險、野心與殘酷於一身的面貌。
──克里斯多福．基薩恩，《愛爾蘭時報》
精采絕倫，引人入勝的歷史片段……令人欲罷不能的新角度，讓人看到了調味料這種東西在幾百年前，是多麼地辛辣。
──《經濟學人》
克勞利在其緊鑼密鼓的敘事裡，填入各種風雨、匱乏、奴役、海盜與喋血的情節，彷彿香料揚起的一陣煙霧，讓人目眩神迷。
──麥可．普羅傑爾，《新政治家》
克勞利的天賦．是可以把碎片拼成彩繪玻璃。而其新作，便是又一本色彩繽紛且衝擊力十足的冒險傳奇。
──科克斯書評
香料可比等重的黃金還值錢，並讓人捨身犯險前仆後繼，即使闖入未知的航線也要一親芳澤。克勞利筆下種種精采的情節扣人心弦。
──蘇菲．羅艾爾，書評網站《五本書》
以不同凡響的可讀性，講述一段驚心動魄的歷史片段。這段歷史讓世界產生了質變──也形塑了我們今日生活的局面。
──佐丹．畢德曼，《帝國的斷裂與連結》作者
一段由故事大師率領我們穿越十六世紀的精采航程。《香料》是一本趣味橫生的歷史故事，當中有不可思議的海上探險，有人類歷史上第一個牽涉到地緣政治的全球供應鏈，也有兩者發生碰撞時，所迸發的火花。
──詹姆斯．史塔夫里迪斯，《放手一搏》作者
羅傑．克勞利做為敘事高手，與這偉大的主題可謂天設地配：環球一周只為創造史上首見的全球化經濟。駭人的艱辛與動人的勇氣，讓人看得血脈賁張，心跳不停。
──大衛．弗朗，《大西洋月刊》資深編輯
做為一個精采絕倫的故事，有著強大的登場角色及歷史上的轉折時刻。我們現處的世界是如何跟為何被創造出來，又有誰為其付出何種代價，本書都清楚的交代。
──安德魯．蘭貝特，《海權國家》作者
生氣盎然的文筆，講述了集果敢、貪婪、殘酷於一身，且不時顯得有勇無謀的冒險家是如何在西班牙的資助下，在現今的印尼與菲律賓從事他們的闖蕩。
──麥可．克朗徳，《征服的滋味》作者
「地中海三部曲」作者羅傑．克勞利又一令人讚嘆新作
氣勢磅薄、衝擊力十足!!
香料，十六世紀形塑現代世界的大競賽!!
香料史上的地理大發現
葡、西兩國遠東大對決
十六世紀最驚駭、刺激的海上長征
開啟強權帝國殖民序幕
專文推薦——
劉慧 (國立東華大學歷史學系助理教授)
讚嘆推薦——
孔令偉（中研院歷史語言研究所助理研究員）
江仲淵 （「歷史說書人History Storyteller」創辦人）
陳國棟（中研院歷史研究所教授）
陸大鵬（中國歷史書專業譯者）
康培德（國立臺灣師範大學臺灣史研究所教授）
本書將告訴你：
▎推動歐洲人探索東方的動力不是絲綢，而是香料
▎投效西班牙的葡萄牙人麥哲倫如何帶領探險隊經歷險惡航程
▎連結起香料史上第一個牽涉到的地緣政治經濟鏈
▎香料貿易促使世界貨幣統一為白銀，加速全球貿易開展
▎揭開強權帝國第一次向外擴張殖民的序幕
當香料開始遠航，帶動近代全球經濟發展，對歐洲人來說，這些香料象徵著前所未有的財富。丁香和肉豆蔻透過錯綜複雜的貿易路線抵達歐洲，而西班牙和葡萄牙的探險家們開始競相尋找香料的神祕來源。當葡萄牙人在一五一一年終於抵達摩鹿加群島的香料產地時，便展開激烈爭奪戰。摩鹿加群島成了一項帝國級的計畫，但也是一個在實務上因為距離過遠，國家無法有效管理或支持的計畫。此時，打開香料群島大門的金鑰匙，握在誰的手上，誰才是最後的贏家。
作者展示這場遠洋競逐如何塑造了現代世界。從一五一一年至一五七一年，歐洲列強開展海上航線，建立龐大的海上帝國，並催生全球貿易，所有的一切都是為了掌控香料供應。掌握香料，才是掌握經濟、權力。大航海時代雖然需要製圖學、地理學、天文學前往香料所在地，但實際上的「占有」才是獲取利益的重要手段。
打開地圖，從塞維亞的造船廠，航向太平洋的遼闊海域，來到印尼的火山香料群島、北極圈以及中國沿岸，本書呈現生動的目擊者紀錄，在冒險、船難和圍城的故事背後，同時也揭開了第一次殖民接觸的序幕，並重塑之後數個世紀的世界經濟。
【國際書評讚譽】
克勞利把每個歷史事件，都變成了引人入勝的故事，令人寒毛直豎的黑暗細節，在激越的情節推演中顯得劇力萬鈞。
──丹尼爾．布魯克斯，英國《電訊報》
文采與格局兼備的精采故事。
──多米尼克．桑德布魯克，《週日版泰晤士報》
克勞利以其穿針引線的能力，讓他的故事跨越時空，呈現出行雲流水的一面。他對於海上遠征的細緻描繪，尤其凸顯本書集冒險、野心與殘酷於一身的面貌。
──克里斯多福．基薩恩，《愛爾蘭時報》
精采絕倫，引人入勝的歷史片段……令人欲罷不能的新角度，讓人看到了調味料這種東西在幾百年前，是多麼地辛辣。
──《經濟學人》
克勞利在其緊鑼密鼓的敘事裡，填入各種風雨、匱乏、奴役、海盜與喋血的情節，彷彿香料揚起的一陣煙霧，讓人目眩神迷。
──麥可．普羅傑爾，《新政治家》
克勞利的天賦．是可以把碎片拼成彩繪玻璃。而其新作，便是又一本色彩繽紛且衝擊力十足的冒險傳奇。
──科克斯書評
香料可比等重的黃金還值錢，並讓人捨身犯險前仆後繼，即使闖入未知的航線也要一親芳澤。克勞利筆下種種精采的情節扣人心弦。
──蘇菲．羅艾爾，書評網站《五本書》
以不同凡響的可讀性，講述一段驚心動魄的歷史片段。這段歷史讓世界產生了質變──也形塑了我們今日生活的局面。
──佐丹．畢德曼，《帝國的斷裂與連結》作者
一段由故事大師率領我們穿越十六世紀的精采航程。《香料》是一本趣味橫生的歷史故事，當中有不可思議的海上探險，有人類歷史上第一個牽涉到地緣政治的全球供應鏈，也有兩者發生碰撞時，所迸發的火花。
──詹姆斯．史塔夫里迪斯，《放手一搏》作者
羅傑．克勞利做為敘事高手，與這偉大的主題可謂天設地配：環球一周只為創造史上首見的全球化經濟。駭人的艱辛與動人的勇氣，讓人看得血脈賁張，心跳不停。
──大衛．弗朗，《大西洋月刊》資深編輯
做為一個精采絕倫的故事，有著強大的登場角色及歷史上的轉折時刻。我們現處的世界是如何跟為何被創造出來，又有誰為其付出何種代價，本書都清楚的交代。
──安德魯．蘭貝特，《海權國家》作者
生氣盎然的文筆，講述了集果敢、貪婪、殘酷於一身，且不時顯得有勇無謀的冒險家是如何在西班牙的資助下，在現今的印尼與菲律賓從事他們的闖蕩。
──麥可．克朗徳，《征服的滋味》作者
376 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2024
About the author
Roger Crowley
12 books899 followersRoger Crowley was born in 1951 and spent part of his childhood in Malta. He read English at Cambridge University and taught English in Istanbul, where he developed a strong interest in the history of Turkey. He has traveled widely throughout the Mediterranean basin over many years and has a wide-ranging knowledge of its history and culture. He lives in Gloucestershire, England.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 143 reviews
April 11, 2025
I think a better title for this book would be TRADE, because this book is less about Spice and more about sea faring and the expansion of trade routes. If you plan on picking this book up because you want to know about the history various spices, you should probably read something else. This book is about Trade and maps.
This was an unexpectedly timely read given current world events. Trade is important. Most countries depend on it to survive. Trade has some good sides but it also leads to atrocities. The global slave trade. The genocides of native peoples. The extinction of various animals including a bird I've never heard of The Auks.
Slavery isn't really touched on until towards the end of the book with the horrifying stat that in thr 17th century their were between 20,000 and 40,000 enslaved Africans in Mexico. Slaves along with the native Andean tribes people were horribly treated and subjected to inhumane working and living conditions.
World trade has from the very beginning depend on the exploitation of developing nations for cheap labor and cheap goods. The most powerful and riches countries in the world are not being "raped" by other countries that those powerful countries depend on for essential items. The powerful countries are the villains. We are the bullies.
I highly recommend this to my fellow History lovers.
This was an unexpectedly timely read given current world events. Trade is important. Most countries depend on it to survive. Trade has some good sides but it also leads to atrocities. The global slave trade. The genocides of native peoples. The extinction of various animals including a bird I've never heard of The Auks.
Slavery isn't really touched on until towards the end of the book with the horrifying stat that in thr 17th century their were between 20,000 and 40,000 enslaved Africans in Mexico. Slaves along with the native Andean tribes people were horribly treated and subjected to inhumane working and living conditions.
World trade has from the very beginning depend on the exploitation of developing nations for cheap labor and cheap goods. The most powerful and riches countries in the world are not being "raped" by other countries that those powerful countries depend on for essential items. The powerful countries are the villains. We are the bullies.
I highly recommend this to my fellow History lovers.
August 28, 2024
In one of his earlier books, Crowley covered the rise of Portuguese exploration around the Cape of Good Hope and into the Indian ocean. In 'Spice', Crowley now turns his attention to the rise of the spice trade and the contest between Portugal and Spain in the Pacific. We actually start with Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe in the early 16th century, but that is well-traveled ground in historical works. The more interesting aspects of this book were the mini-wars between Spain and Portugal in the spice islands, the attempts to establish trading ports in the Philippines, China and Japan, and the routing back across the Pacific that opened that arena to international trade. He really covers a lot of ground in a short amount of time. That will appeal to a lot of readers as it makes for a fast read, but I would love to see Crowley drill down on some of these episodes a little more. He seems to have a wordcount in mind when he begins a new project. A very good book, to be sure, but maybe not quite excellent. High three stars.
August 8, 2026
Survey of the Spice Wars over cloves, nutmeg, and pepper, the first worldwide trading commodities, in the 16th Century between the Portuguese and Spanish, set in process European global exploration and created the first global trading networks.
Myristica fragrans. Valued for centuries in the global spice trade, M. fragrans is the primary source of two distinct spices: nutmeg, derived from its seed, and mace, obtained from the seed's aril. Dried spices were an almost imperishable, high-value, lightweight, luxury consumable ideal for long, ocean transport. In 1515, Lisboa, the return on an arrived cargo was 700%.
My dead tree version was 304 pages and carried a US 2024 copyright. The book includes illustrations, maps, footnotes, a bibliography, and an index.
Roger Crowley is a British historian and author known for his works on maritime and Mediterranean history. He has written around ten books covering the Middle Ages. This was the second book I’ve read by him. The first being Empires of the Sea: The Final Battle for the Mediterranean, 1521 - 1580 (my review).
This is an intermediate-level, popular work. It’s strongly recommended that readers have some background knowledge of European late medieval history and the “age of sail” maritime exploration before tackling it. Familiarity with Southeast Asian geography is also helpful.
Spice is a combination of the history of The Age of Discovery and the economics of globalization through Iberian exploration. In the early 1500s, small amounts of exotic Southeast Asian spices began to arrive in Europe, creating enormous demand. Portuguese exploratory sea voyages circumnavigating the intervening Ottoman Empire eventually located the sole source of cloves and nutmeg products in the Molucca Islands, now in Indonesia. (Black pepper came from India, an earlier colonial conquest.) Earlier in 1494, with the Treaty of Tordesillas between the seafaring, colonizing empires of Portugal and Spain, the globe outside Europe was divided longitudinally into hemispheric spheres of influence, irrespective of the indigenous populations or that accurate longitudinal calculation was beyond the current technology. Most of Southeast Asia was within the Portuguese sphere of influence. Spice trade set off a rivalry between the Iberian Portuguese and Spanish Empires for over two generations, from 1511 to 1580 C.E. The Portuguese more easily developed trade routes and colonies by traveling south around Africa then to the east. Being excluded from the more direct route by treaty, the Spanish made voyages of discovery westward, originally from Spain and later Mexico, determined to find a route to Southeast Asia that avoided the Portuguese. (They were unaware of the North/South extent of the Americas' landmass and the breadth of the Pacific Ocean.) Over almost 80 years, Iberian colonies and their global trade routes linked Europe and Asia, developing the first instance of the global economy.
Crowley describes the good, the bad, and the ugly of age-of-sail exploration and Iberian imperialism in Southeast Asia. Sailors died like flies on these long voyages. The Iberians were both traders and conquistadores. The world generally benefited from the trade, but it also included genocide and slavery. The book provides a lively description of the 16th-century maritime exploration and commerce, technology, and colonial encounters that remade the early modern world through Iberian imperialism. However, the book is uneven, and Crowley reaches in places. While this is a popular history, Crowley's narrative is littered with unexplained facts that might be interpreted as speculation by a trained historian. In addition, while his bibliography is wide enough, his citations indicate a very narrow usage of primary sources. In the end, this provided a solid description of the first knitting of east and west.
The Review
I like reading Crowley's histories. His popularization of historical writing makes for quick reads on what might be considered obscure events, but contain great importance. His litany of the gunfire, bloodshed, and double-crosses within history can be entertaining. However, you can't know too much when reading him, or you'll see how much he stretches the fabric of history to make for a better narrative.
The production quality of my book was very good. I found no errors in Yale University Press's copyediting.
Crowley's prose is strong. It was pitched in a style between academic and popular history. Although there is some repetition, his style resembles that of Rick Atkinson , combining scholarly detail with a journalistic bent that makes the narrative vivid and, at times, disturbing. The effects of the hardships on the crews of long ocean voyages are full of body horror, particularly involving starvation and deficiency diseases. He's particularly fond of repetitiously describing the effects of scurvy. The conquistadors had little, if any, cultural sensitivity, which led to atrocities, despite a veneer of chivalry amongst themselves and their Iberian counterparts.
The book assumes readers have a working knowledge of naval terminology (“port,” “starboard,” “fore,” “aft,” etc.). Although Crowley occasionally assumes a higher level of knowledge of naval architecture and maneuver. In addition, late medieval military terms, both ground and naval, are also used.
The book contains sixteen photographs and numerous period illustrations. The photographs were well chosen. Modern line diagrams of period ships were absent, and would have been valuable, given their use in exploration and commerce. Most readers may recognize "galleons" but not be familiar with them. Period pictures and woodcuts are used liberally, though the woodcut's technical accuracy could be more confusing than helpful.
The use of maps, a crucial component of exploration history, was good. There were six professional line maps. The line maps included were useful for orientation but lacked sufficient detail to support the narrative. For example, the important San Bernardino Strait is unmarked in the map of the Philippines, and the period trade route. There is also no map of the period showing Mexico's arduous land bridge to the Pacific from the Atlantic, through Mexico City. All maps appear at the beginning of the book rather than within their respective chapters. Some 16th-century “map-like” illustrations appear, but these are more artistic than accurate.
Charts and graphs were absent; they could have enhanced the understanding of numerical and logistical details. At times, I wished the author had consulted Tufte’s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information .
Footnotes appear only at the end of the book and were enumerated in the text. Crowley is known for his use of primary sources. The citations indicated a narrow reliance on primary sources to support the narrative sections. This was despite a solid but short Bibliography. That's problematic.
The bibliography is extensive, spanning 1704 to 2021 and including sources in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. The index is adequate but lacks the granularity of modern computer-generated ones. Cross-references for individuals and terms were inconsistent.
The book is organized chronologically, focusing mainly on the western hemisphere for the Spanish Iberians and Southeast Asia for the Portuguese Iberians. The narrative is primarily a Jostling of Empires between the Catholic Portuguese (the first movers) and the Castilian Spanish. Tudor England is mentioned in only one section.
16th Century Iberian Southeast Asian trade routes: Portuguese trade routes (Blue) originating in Lisboa, Spanish trade routes (White) originating in Seville.
Strategic overviews of the competing powers and the influence of geography on maritime trade between Southeast Asia and Europe are addressed in great detail. The Pacific is a vast ocean compared to the Atlantic. Commerce and its “trade protection” were practiced very differently between the Portuguese, who traversed the Atlantic and Indian oceans, and the Spanish, who traversed the Atlantic and then the Pacific.
The book focuses on mainly Portuguese and Spanish expeditions pioneering trade routes and colonization in Southeast Asia: the Indies Voyages of Francisco Serrão (1511), Spanish Magellan expedition (1519), Portugeuse Missions to China (1514 -24), the Spanish Loaísa expedition (1522 -26), Spanish Saavedra expedition from Mexico (1526 -36), Spanish Villalobos expedition to the Philippines (1542 -46), Portuguese Galvão Moluccas pacification (1536 -40), the English Northeast Passage expedition (1553- 56), Portuguese trade penetration of China, and Spanish Legazpi expedition colonizing the Philippines (1557-71), the emergence of silver as a global currency (1545- 71) and the emergence of Proto-globalization(1571- 80).
Biographical analysis of key figures on both the Catholic Portuguese, Spanish, and the indigenous Southeast Asians, Central and South Americans (Moluccans, Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, and South American Indians) covering their political, organizational, and professional conflicts in what might now be “strategy” is sometimes excellent, sometimes sparse. For example, the Japanese Sengoku period leadership receives much less attention than the Chinese Ming dynasty leadership in resisting Portuguese influence and pressure during the period. It should be noted that establishing Asian colonies and practical east-west trade routes between Europe and Southeast Asia was a generations-long endeavor by the Iberians: in many cases, sons, brothers, and nephews carried on the efforts started by their fathers, older brothers, and uncles in Asia.
The book is somewhat uneven in detail. The voyages are well covered, and the diplomatic and cultural sections are likewise strong; however, the development of the colonial administrative apparatus received less attention. Colonial apparatus is the set of institutions, policies, and administrative structures and physical infrastructure established by colonizing powers to govern and exploit their colonies. For example, it took a “Moon-Landing”-like effort for the Spanish to build a shipyard on the west coast of Mexico over four years to build the Legazpi expedition's ships to colonize the Philippines. Even then, sails and cannons had to be imported from Spain because Mexico lacked the manufacturing capacity to produce them. There was no discussion of the later effort required to build the Manila galleons in use from 1565 to 1815, built from “native hardwoods” at the Cavite shipyard in remote Manila, in the Philippines. For that matter, the development of Manila into the entrepôt for late 16th-Century Southeast Asian/European trade was very hastily described.
Even so, this book provided me with several revelations on a pivotal period in the late-medieval, early-modern history of Habsburg Spain. These insights explained both cultural and economic frontiers that persist to this day.
Like all histories of exploration, this is ultimately a story of men, machines, and organizations in contention. Crowley leaves the reader being familiar with the period's key figures: emperors, like Philip II (1527–1598), indigenous leaders like Tanegashima Tokitaka (1528–1579), and explorers, like Andrés de Urdaneta, OSA (1508 – 1568). Biographical sketches are generally well done. They're also not just of the high and mighty. There are journalistic-style references to some very minor figures that readers of popular histories will appreciate. These make the narrative more vivid.
Crowley does well in describing the technology, organization, and evolution of maritime commerce during this period. For example, the Portuguese India Armadas and the previously mentioned Manila Galleons.
Crowley also handles the organizational behavior of the Spanish Habsburgs well, while the Portuguese House of Aviz is less well covered. The author was more descriptive of the English House of Tudor and their ill-fated attempts at the pre-Global Warming Northeast and Northwest passages than of the Portuguese. The Chinese Ming dynasty and the other indigenous peoples were handled well enough.
The late-medieval/early modern 16th Century was the first since antiquity when wealth, technology, and bureaucracy allowed global commerce. Central administration wasn't possible over these long distances, and trading voyages could take a year round-trip. However, the profits from global trade in luxury cargoes were enormous and continued despite inevitable losses. Global commerce started with spices being traded with primitive islanders in exchange for trinkets. The Habsburgs’ New World acquisitions brought immense amounts of silver bullion. Bullion was converted into specie, which paid for armies, navies, and colonial development. Eventually, contact was made with the advanced Chinese and Japanese societies. In trade with China, the Chinese only took silver, for tax purposes, in exchange for rare agricultural products (tea and silk) and advanced manufacturing (porcelain and precision metalware). Spanish silver was used to pay for Chinese goods.
Summary
This book's greatest strength lies in situating the imperialist trade economy within the late-medieval/early-modern world. The Portuguese and the Spanish competed with each other until the Iberian Union, which combined the two houses. This consolidation left the Habsburg dynasty in almost complete control of global trade until the rise of the Dutch East India Company (1602 – 1730).
Its weakest point was Crowley's peculiar apologia for the conquistadors. They came to conquer and then trade, although if they couldn't conquer, they'd find a way to trade. The slavery or genocide of the indigenous population was always a potential policy.
This is a story of men, machines (ships), and empires in contention. Its Southeast Asian focus reveals the early shift of wealth and power from Southern Europe to the Iberian seafaring states, and eventually to northern Europe via Southeast Asian trade.
This is a worthwhile read for those with a background in world economic and diplomatic history, particularly maritime commerce, who wish to understand why, in the 16th Century, China was the manufacturing center for European luxury goods, as it is today.
Myristica fragrans. Valued for centuries in the global spice trade, M. fragrans is the primary source of two distinct spices: nutmeg, derived from its seed, and mace, obtained from the seed's aril. Dried spices were an almost imperishable, high-value, lightweight, luxury consumable ideal for long, ocean transport. In 1515, Lisboa, the return on an arrived cargo was 700%.
My dead tree version was 304 pages and carried a US 2024 copyright. The book includes illustrations, maps, footnotes, a bibliography, and an index.
Roger Crowley is a British historian and author known for his works on maritime and Mediterranean history. He has written around ten books covering the Middle Ages. This was the second book I’ve read by him. The first being Empires of the Sea: The Final Battle for the Mediterranean, 1521 - 1580 (my review).
This is an intermediate-level, popular work. It’s strongly recommended that readers have some background knowledge of European late medieval history and the “age of sail” maritime exploration before tackling it. Familiarity with Southeast Asian geography is also helpful.
“The world's mine oyster,TL;DR
Which I with sword will open.” -- William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act 2, Scene 1
Spice is a combination of the history of The Age of Discovery and the economics of globalization through Iberian exploration. In the early 1500s, small amounts of exotic Southeast Asian spices began to arrive in Europe, creating enormous demand. Portuguese exploratory sea voyages circumnavigating the intervening Ottoman Empire eventually located the sole source of cloves and nutmeg products in the Molucca Islands, now in Indonesia. (Black pepper came from India, an earlier colonial conquest.) Earlier in 1494, with the Treaty of Tordesillas between the seafaring, colonizing empires of Portugal and Spain, the globe outside Europe was divided longitudinally into hemispheric spheres of influence, irrespective of the indigenous populations or that accurate longitudinal calculation was beyond the current technology. Most of Southeast Asia was within the Portuguese sphere of influence. Spice trade set off a rivalry between the Iberian Portuguese and Spanish Empires for over two generations, from 1511 to 1580 C.E. The Portuguese more easily developed trade routes and colonies by traveling south around Africa then to the east. Being excluded from the more direct route by treaty, the Spanish made voyages of discovery westward, originally from Spain and later Mexico, determined to find a route to Southeast Asia that avoided the Portuguese. (They were unaware of the North/South extent of the Americas' landmass and the breadth of the Pacific Ocean.) Over almost 80 years, Iberian colonies and their global trade routes linked Europe and Asia, developing the first instance of the global economy.
Crowley describes the good, the bad, and the ugly of age-of-sail exploration and Iberian imperialism in Southeast Asia. Sailors died like flies on these long voyages. The Iberians were both traders and conquistadores. The world generally benefited from the trade, but it also included genocide and slavery. The book provides a lively description of the 16th-century maritime exploration and commerce, technology, and colonial encounters that remade the early modern world through Iberian imperialism. However, the book is uneven, and Crowley reaches in places. While this is a popular history, Crowley's narrative is littered with unexplained facts that might be interpreted as speculation by a trained historian. In addition, while his bibliography is wide enough, his citations indicate a very narrow usage of primary sources. In the end, this provided a solid description of the first knitting of east and west.
The Review
I like reading Crowley's histories. His popularization of historical writing makes for quick reads on what might be considered obscure events, but contain great importance. His litany of the gunfire, bloodshed, and double-crosses within history can be entertaining. However, you can't know too much when reading him, or you'll see how much he stretches the fabric of history to make for a better narrative.
The production quality of my book was very good. I found no errors in Yale University Press's copyediting.
Crowley's prose is strong. It was pitched in a style between academic and popular history. Although there is some repetition, his style resembles that of Rick Atkinson , combining scholarly detail with a journalistic bent that makes the narrative vivid and, at times, disturbing. The effects of the hardships on the crews of long ocean voyages are full of body horror, particularly involving starvation and deficiency diseases. He's particularly fond of repetitiously describing the effects of scurvy. The conquistadors had little, if any, cultural sensitivity, which led to atrocities, despite a veneer of chivalry amongst themselves and their Iberian counterparts.
The book assumes readers have a working knowledge of naval terminology (“port,” “starboard,” “fore,” “aft,” etc.). Although Crowley occasionally assumes a higher level of knowledge of naval architecture and maneuver. In addition, late medieval military terms, both ground and naval, are also used.
The book contains sixteen photographs and numerous period illustrations. The photographs were well chosen. Modern line diagrams of period ships were absent, and would have been valuable, given their use in exploration and commerce. Most readers may recognize "galleons" but not be familiar with them. Period pictures and woodcuts are used liberally, though the woodcut's technical accuracy could be more confusing than helpful.
The use of maps, a crucial component of exploration history, was good. There were six professional line maps. The line maps included were useful for orientation but lacked sufficient detail to support the narrative. For example, the important San Bernardino Strait is unmarked in the map of the Philippines, and the period trade route. There is also no map of the period showing Mexico's arduous land bridge to the Pacific from the Atlantic, through Mexico City. All maps appear at the beginning of the book rather than within their respective chapters. Some 16th-century “map-like” illustrations appear, but these are more artistic than accurate.
Charts and graphs were absent; they could have enhanced the understanding of numerical and logistical details. At times, I wished the author had consulted Tufte’s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information .
Footnotes appear only at the end of the book and were enumerated in the text. Crowley is known for his use of primary sources. The citations indicated a narrow reliance on primary sources to support the narrative sections. This was despite a solid but short Bibliography. That's problematic.
The bibliography is extensive, spanning 1704 to 2021 and including sources in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. The index is adequate but lacks the granularity of modern computer-generated ones. Cross-references for individuals and terms were inconsistent.
The book is organized chronologically, focusing mainly on the western hemisphere for the Spanish Iberians and Southeast Asia for the Portuguese Iberians. The narrative is primarily a Jostling of Empires between the Catholic Portuguese (the first movers) and the Castilian Spanish. Tudor England is mentioned in only one section.
16th Century Iberian Southeast Asian trade routes: Portuguese trade routes (Blue) originating in Lisboa, Spanish trade routes (White) originating in Seville.
Strategic overviews of the competing powers and the influence of geography on maritime trade between Southeast Asia and Europe are addressed in great detail. The Pacific is a vast ocean compared to the Atlantic. Commerce and its “trade protection” were practiced very differently between the Portuguese, who traversed the Atlantic and Indian oceans, and the Spanish, who traversed the Atlantic and then the Pacific.
The book focuses on mainly Portuguese and Spanish expeditions pioneering trade routes and colonization in Southeast Asia: the Indies Voyages of Francisco Serrão (1511), Spanish Magellan expedition (1519), Portugeuse Missions to China (1514 -24), the Spanish Loaísa expedition (1522 -26), Spanish Saavedra expedition from Mexico (1526 -36), Spanish Villalobos expedition to the Philippines (1542 -46), Portuguese Galvão Moluccas pacification (1536 -40), the English Northeast Passage expedition (1553- 56), Portuguese trade penetration of China, and Spanish Legazpi expedition colonizing the Philippines (1557-71), the emergence of silver as a global currency (1545- 71) and the emergence of Proto-globalization(1571- 80).
Biographical analysis of key figures on both the Catholic Portuguese, Spanish, and the indigenous Southeast Asians, Central and South Americans (Moluccans, Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, and South American Indians) covering their political, organizational, and professional conflicts in what might now be “strategy” is sometimes excellent, sometimes sparse. For example, the Japanese Sengoku period leadership receives much less attention than the Chinese Ming dynasty leadership in resisting Portuguese influence and pressure during the period. It should be noted that establishing Asian colonies and practical east-west trade routes between Europe and Southeast Asia was a generations-long endeavor by the Iberians: in many cases, sons, brothers, and nephews carried on the efforts started by their fathers, older brothers, and uncles in Asia.
The book is somewhat uneven in detail. The voyages are well covered, and the diplomatic and cultural sections are likewise strong; however, the development of the colonial administrative apparatus received less attention. Colonial apparatus is the set of institutions, policies, and administrative structures and physical infrastructure established by colonizing powers to govern and exploit their colonies. For example, it took a “Moon-Landing”-like effort for the Spanish to build a shipyard on the west coast of Mexico over four years to build the Legazpi expedition's ships to colonize the Philippines. Even then, sails and cannons had to be imported from Spain because Mexico lacked the manufacturing capacity to produce them. There was no discussion of the later effort required to build the Manila galleons in use from 1565 to 1815, built from “native hardwoods” at the Cavite shipyard in remote Manila, in the Philippines. For that matter, the development of Manila into the entrepôt for late 16th-Century Southeast Asian/European trade was very hastily described.
Even so, this book provided me with several revelations on a pivotal period in the late-medieval, early-modern history of Habsburg Spain. These insights explained both cultural and economic frontiers that persist to this day.
Like all histories of exploration, this is ultimately a story of men, machines, and organizations in contention. Crowley leaves the reader being familiar with the period's key figures: emperors, like Philip II (1527–1598), indigenous leaders like Tanegashima Tokitaka (1528–1579), and explorers, like Andrés de Urdaneta, OSA (1508 – 1568). Biographical sketches are generally well done. They're also not just of the high and mighty. There are journalistic-style references to some very minor figures that readers of popular histories will appreciate. These make the narrative more vivid.
Crowley does well in describing the technology, organization, and evolution of maritime commerce during this period. For example, the Portuguese India Armadas and the previously mentioned Manila Galleons.
Crowley also handles the organizational behavior of the Spanish Habsburgs well, while the Portuguese House of Aviz is less well covered. The author was more descriptive of the English House of Tudor and their ill-fated attempts at the pre-Global Warming Northeast and Northwest passages than of the Portuguese. The Chinese Ming dynasty and the other indigenous peoples were handled well enough.
The late-medieval/early modern 16th Century was the first since antiquity when wealth, technology, and bureaucracy allowed global commerce. Central administration wasn't possible over these long distances, and trading voyages could take a year round-trip. However, the profits from global trade in luxury cargoes were enormous and continued despite inevitable losses. Global commerce started with spices being traded with primitive islanders in exchange for trinkets. The Habsburgs’ New World acquisitions brought immense amounts of silver bullion. Bullion was converted into specie, which paid for armies, navies, and colonial development. Eventually, contact was made with the advanced Chinese and Japanese societies. In trade with China, the Chinese only took silver, for tax purposes, in exchange for rare agricultural products (tea and silk) and advanced manufacturing (porcelain and precision metalware). Spanish silver was used to pay for Chinese goods.
Summary
This book's greatest strength lies in situating the imperialist trade economy within the late-medieval/early-modern world. The Portuguese and the Spanish competed with each other until the Iberian Union, which combined the two houses. This consolidation left the Habsburg dynasty in almost complete control of global trade until the rise of the Dutch East India Company (1602 – 1730).
Its weakest point was Crowley's peculiar apologia for the conquistadors. They came to conquer and then trade, although if they couldn't conquer, they'd find a way to trade. The slavery or genocide of the indigenous population was always a potential policy.
This is a story of men, machines (ships), and empires in contention. Its Southeast Asian focus reveals the early shift of wealth and power from Southern Europe to the Iberian seafaring states, and eventually to northern Europe via Southeast Asian trade.
This is a worthwhile read for those with a background in world economic and diplomatic history, particularly maritime commerce, who wish to understand why, in the 16th Century, China was the manufacturing center for European luxury goods, as it is today.
August 7, 2024
I had a lot of fun with this one, as I almost always do with Crowley’s work. This book bills itself as a story about the spice trade, and that’s certainly present throughout the narrative, but really what it’s about is Spain and Portugal forging the last few links in a global trading network while doing their best to wipe each other out, all while exploiting every natural resource and oppressing every indigenous person they come across. The book walks a pretty fine line between being exciting, informative, and depressing.
Lots of good stuff in here, including a really engrossing summary of Magellan’s expedition and its aftermath, stories about early European contact with China, and a section on the Spanish galleon trade. My favorite bit of the book occurred during a one chapter aside about an attempt by the English to establish their own north east route to the pacific, only to get derailed in Russia. This section of the book includes an account of an honest to god ghost ship, and even though the explanation for that ship is very logical and very mundane, there were still a few genuinely creepy moments where I was like “what the fuck is even happening in this book right now?” Not a feeling I ever expected to experience while reading a history book about boats and shit. Very good stuff all around.
Lots of good stuff in here, including a really engrossing summary of Magellan’s expedition and its aftermath, stories about early European contact with China, and a section on the Spanish galleon trade. My favorite bit of the book occurred during a one chapter aside about an attempt by the English to establish their own north east route to the pacific, only to get derailed in Russia. This section of the book includes an account of an honest to god ghost ship, and even though the explanation for that ship is very logical and very mundane, there were still a few genuinely creepy moments where I was like “what the fuck is even happening in this book right now?” Not a feeling I ever expected to experience while reading a history book about boats and shit. Very good stuff all around.
August 20, 2026
Обожаю приключения, и все эти корабли и открытия, новые страны и переходы, и прочая, и прочая. Но автор, конечно, с историческими источникам поступает, скорее, как с возможностью описать драму, сделать триллер, вольно додумывает то, чего мы знать не можем (например, что там кричал Магеллан и во что он был одет, когда его убивал великий Лапу Лапу).
Не хватило мне связки всех этих историй во что-то осязаемое. Одна глава с рассуждениями на тему «и так мир стал глобальным» недостаточно для заявленного названия. Хотелось большей глубины и анализы.
Не хватило мне связки всех этих историй во что-то осязаемое. Одна глава с рассуждениями на тему «и так мир стал глобальным» недостаточно для заявленного названия. Хотелось большей глубины и анализы.
Read
June 18, 2024As we slide towards Earth’s sixth extinction event and look covetously towards planets endowed with precious rare metals, Roger Crowley’s new book should be required reading for those commanding future conquests of resource extraction. Written with the verve of a detective novel, Crowley charts a 16th-century version of the ‘moon shot’ to the fabled ‘Spice Islands’ of the Moluccas.
Then the sole known source of cloves, nutmeg, mace and sandalwood, trading profits on these rare but easily portable commodities could reach a thousand per cent. Such profits were the stuff of dreams, spawning a frenzy of map-making, schools of navigation, travel accounts, commercial espionage, state-sponsored exploration and oversight bodies, with Seville’s Casa de la Contratación de las Indias (established in 1503) leading the way. It would not last, but for a moment in the 16th century, buoyed by the silver of the New World, it would catapult Spain to superpower status.
Crowley’s book spans an action-packed 60 years, stretching from the Portuguese conquest of Malacca (Melaka) on 15 August 1511 to the Spanish conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi’s capture of Manila on 24 June 1571. Both provided secure bases for the Iberians in the Malay world and the Philippines thus ensuring them a temporary global advantage: ‘Whoever is Lord of Melaka has his hand on the throat of Venice’, as the astute Portuguese apothecary Tomé Pires put it. The fact that both victories occurred on major Catholic feast days – the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St John the Baptist’s Day respectively – was not lost on the pious Iberians.
Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com.
Peter Carey is Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College, Oxford and former Adjunct Professor in Humanities at the University of Indonesia.
Then the sole known source of cloves, nutmeg, mace and sandalwood, trading profits on these rare but easily portable commodities could reach a thousand per cent. Such profits were the stuff of dreams, spawning a frenzy of map-making, schools of navigation, travel accounts, commercial espionage, state-sponsored exploration and oversight bodies, with Seville’s Casa de la Contratación de las Indias (established in 1503) leading the way. It would not last, but for a moment in the 16th century, buoyed by the silver of the New World, it would catapult Spain to superpower status.
Crowley’s book spans an action-packed 60 years, stretching from the Portuguese conquest of Malacca (Melaka) on 15 August 1511 to the Spanish conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi’s capture of Manila on 24 June 1571. Both provided secure bases for the Iberians in the Malay world and the Philippines thus ensuring them a temporary global advantage: ‘Whoever is Lord of Melaka has his hand on the throat of Venice’, as the astute Portuguese apothecary Tomé Pires put it. The fact that both victories occurred on major Catholic feast days – the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St John the Baptist’s Day respectively – was not lost on the pious Iberians.
Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com.
Peter Carey is Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College, Oxford and former Adjunct Professor in Humanities at the University of Indonesia.
July 30, 2025
Great book. Really interesting, with great inserts from explores and ships logs. So intriguing and was easy to get hooked into a read-a-thon.
January 20, 2026
Theme is a bit tenuous for some of the chapters, but good
March 31, 2026
Jeg prøvede. Guderne skal vide jeg prøvede. Men 183 sider inde giver jeg op - den her bog er SIMPELTHEN så kedelig. En lang uendelighed af datoer, navne og den samme elendighed igen og igen. Skrevet som fagbog, men med et twist af skønlitteratur så den formår at være lige dårlig til begge.
February 1, 2026
fascinating, if at times pretty uncritical of European expansionism … call a spade a spade pls roger!
August 2, 2026
地理大發現後的香料貿易一直是我非常有興趣的一段歷史，而羅傑·克勞利的《香料》這本書主要講述16世紀香料貿易背後的西葡大戰，是本非常有趣的歷史書籍。我個人覺得前半段比較深硬，建議要有耐心閱讀，尤其是因為作者引用了一些歷史文件，讀起來偶爾會覺得枯燥乏味；後半段因為有較多我認識的歷史人物與事件，相對比較好閱讀，也是讓我沒有棄書的最大原因。除了談論香料貿易以外，後半段還介紹了因為香料貿易而興盛的跨太平洋航線，總之我覺得是本讓我有不少收穫的書。
整體來說，這是本可以讓讀者全面了解該段歷史的書，我會推薦給對於這段歷史已有基本認識的讀者，不然前半部讀來可能蠻痛苦的。
整體來說，這是本可以讓讀者全面了解該段歷史的書，我會推薦給對於這段歷史已有基本認識的讀者，不然前半部讀來可能蠻痛苦的。
August 16, 2026
Magellan dying so early in this book is akin to Ned Stark dying in Season 1 of GOT. In all, an excellent book about a niche but pivotal period. But did we need the parting references to nuclear testing, coral reef bleaching and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
Read
July 24, 2026DNF
April 21, 2026
A long, meandering narrative all intense descriptions of sea journeys over long miles of ocean.
Not descriptive about the Kings and Emperors who facilitated the adventures.
Interesting to learn about Import/ export on China over silver- changing the world economy. I had previously read of England's silver in the 12th and 13th centuries.
I may well read more off exactly Spain and Portugal policies towards each other.
Not descriptive about the Kings and Emperors who facilitated the adventures.
Interesting to learn about Import/ export on China over silver- changing the world economy. I had previously read of England's silver in the 12th and 13th centuries.
I may well read more off exactly Spain and Portugal policies towards each other.
December 9, 2025
(4.7 stars) A really amazing read, very fun and fast paced, it really reads like a novel. This is a book about the early Portuguese and Spanish missions to the spice islands in southeast asia, starting with Vasco de Gama and Columbus accidentally discovering the Americas, and then going on to Magellan and his successors. I learned a ton from this book. It totally fascinated me how the desire for spices from the rich, just a simple luxury item, which might be something like luxury cars or expensive handbags to us now, launched insane expeditions and completely changed history. We start off with the Portuguese conquering Malacca in India, though the author doesn’t go very deep into that, and I wish he did, and then going from there to the spice islands, the Moluccas. We learn a lot about the confusing relationship between Spain and Portugal at this time in history. There were significant tensions between the two empires, but their royalty were all related and kind to one another, leading to some really bizarre diplomacy, like the Tordesillas Line. We then follow the story of Magellan, who got sponsored by King Charles of Spain, who was trying to get to the spice islands by a different route than the Portuguese did around Africa, to avoid those military tensions and to hopefully find a shorter route. So he sails all the way to South America, finds a waterway near the very south and then sails through the Pacific ocean, finally arriving at the Moluccas after just about the most nightmarish trip that one could ever go on. Between mutinies, starvation, disease and violent feuds with indigenous peoples, most of Magellans crew died or ended up stranded on random islands in the Pacific. With the few people he has left, he finally arrives at his destination in the Moluccas only to get embroiled in local disputes between warlords. He moronically gets himself and a bunch of his followers killed in an extremely stupid battle with a local army. The story of Magellan is definitely the high point of this book, and a great reminder that people were always really dumb and short sighted. The rest of the book continues with further voyages and the development of Spain and Portugal. Overall an amazing book.
October 28, 2025
Tenker det er mange som leser Erika Fatlands "Sjøfareren" nå, og det helt sikkert med god grunn. Jeg skal også lese den, men den handler om Portugal og Fatlands reise fra Lisboa til krydderøyene i Indonesia. Denne boken handler om krydder, men også om alt det andre som skjedde på 1500-tallet: Kampen mellom Spania og Portugal om handelsherredømme, oppdagelsen av sjørutene gjennom Stillehavet til det som i dager Filipinene og Indonesia, den er innom seilaser langs Norskekysten og inn i Hvitesjøen, egentlig om hele det storpolitiske handelsspillet om havene og kampen om markedene.
Jeg tror at du ikke får nok etter Sjøfareren. Da er det denne boka du skal gå til, for den er helt fabelaktig kunnskapsrik, informativ og samtidig like fabelaktig skrevet.
Jeg tror at du ikke får nok etter Sjøfareren. Da er det denne boka du skal gå til, for den er helt fabelaktig kunnskapsrik, informativ og samtidig like fabelaktig skrevet.
February 16, 2026
Libro interesante y recomendable para conocer la historia de la globalización. Se centra en los episodios que tuvieron lugar en el siglo XVI con los portugueses y españoles en su lucha por disponer de las islas de las especias. Asi mismo, se añade el viaje inglés hacia el norte con el objetivo de encontrar una nueva ruta comercial a oriente y lo que encontraron fue el Reino de Rusia. También, se pone de manifiesto la importancia del comercio en China y su relación con los países ibéricos.
January 12, 2026
Another great narrative history by Roger Crowley. As in his previous books, it feels more like reading a story than history. Pivotal moments during Spanish and Portugese explorations are related in a flowing narrative supported by first hand accounts, giving life to this entire period of history and the people who drove it.
September 2, 2024
History is wild. Interesting to learn about my Spanish heritage (sorry, world) and Portuguese influence on Japan and other parts of the world (apologies again). Will bring a new level of appreciation to my next travels.
May 16, 2026
What a riveting narrative history! It reminded me just how brutal, dangerous, greedy, and world-changing the Age of Exploration was. Thankfully, it isn’t the sanitized version of the explorers. It’s the more accurate version: ocean-spanning voyages, high death tolls, lots of greed, conspiracies and betrayals, and inhuman cruelty. In short, it’s about the pretty violent birth of the global economy.
Crowley really is a gifted narrative historian. The book reads like a novel at times but always stays tethered to historical reality. Storms, starvation, mutiny, shipwrecks, disease, political intrigue, naval warfare, they just keep coming. It made me realize how fragile these expeditions really were. Life at sea was horrifying. They died of exposure, malnutrition (those are maybe the most horrifying stories), infection, and exhaustion. Added to all that suffering were the ruthless captains and treachery among the expeditions themselves. It’s a wonder anyone survived; often none of them did.
Behind everything lurks greed. Everyone was willing to risk huge amounts of money and many human lives for control of spices we now buy for pennies. These luxury items unleashed so much suffering to obtain them.
The book deals honestly with the Europeans’ conduct toward native people: contempt, manipulation, coercion, or violence whenever they deemed it necessary. Sadly, the rhetoric Christianity was often used to hide their avarice. It was all very disheartening.
For me, the final chapters were most interesting as they mapped out the world-wide trade networks these voyages birthed. It’s like I could see the modern world coming into existence. This wasn’t just the story of a commodity (in fact it really wasn’t about the spices all that much); it’s the story of globalization and the devastation caused by human greed.
This is great narrative history. It really was gripping and at the same time unsettling.
Crowley really is a gifted narrative historian. The book reads like a novel at times but always stays tethered to historical reality. Storms, starvation, mutiny, shipwrecks, disease, political intrigue, naval warfare, they just keep coming. It made me realize how fragile these expeditions really were. Life at sea was horrifying. They died of exposure, malnutrition (those are maybe the most horrifying stories), infection, and exhaustion. Added to all that suffering were the ruthless captains and treachery among the expeditions themselves. It’s a wonder anyone survived; often none of them did.
Behind everything lurks greed. Everyone was willing to risk huge amounts of money and many human lives for control of spices we now buy for pennies. These luxury items unleashed so much suffering to obtain them.
The book deals honestly with the Europeans’ conduct toward native people: contempt, manipulation, coercion, or violence whenever they deemed it necessary. Sadly, the rhetoric Christianity was often used to hide their avarice. It was all very disheartening.
For me, the final chapters were most interesting as they mapped out the world-wide trade networks these voyages birthed. It’s like I could see the modern world coming into existence. This wasn’t just the story of a commodity (in fact it really wasn’t about the spices all that much); it’s the story of globalization and the devastation caused by human greed.
This is great narrative history. It really was gripping and at the same time unsettling.
May 31, 2026
I bought this book in Schiphol Airport (an outgrowth of the events in this book, I would say) because of the title.
I take away one star because this book is not really about spice. Sure, spice from the Spice Islands is the force that sets all the events of this book in motion, but overall this book is about exploration and trade. So, in a way, I felt somewhat cheated although the subtitle of the book clearly states the actual intent.
I'm also pretty sure that I have read many of the stories previously as a teenager when I would swallow books on these themes (fiction and non-fiction) in one sitting. Whole days spent on distant seas and mysterious islands...
The book does have many interesting ideas which I hadn't heard about before or at least that hadn't registered with me. For example, the reason why the English went northwards instead. Or the size of Potosi. And, of course, all the parallels of history with the main result of all the events described in this book: the modern world.
"Many of the cultures to which the Europeans travelled came to produce hybrid works of art: statues of the Madonna and child that look distinctly Chinese; carved ivory boxes from Sri Lanka that mixed Hindu deities with representations of European kings and images of Dürer; Portuguese nobles in palanquins in Goan art and their ambassadors in Mughal miniatures; Benin bronzes of crucifixes and European soldiers with muskets and crossbows; intricately carved ivory salt-cellars topped with Western sailing ships. The inventiveness of Chinese craftsmen, their ability to copy and adapt for markets, was already legendary."
Do read.
I take away one star because this book is not really about spice. Sure, spice from the Spice Islands is the force that sets all the events of this book in motion, but overall this book is about exploration and trade. So, in a way, I felt somewhat cheated although the subtitle of the book clearly states the actual intent.
I'm also pretty sure that I have read many of the stories previously as a teenager when I would swallow books on these themes (fiction and non-fiction) in one sitting. Whole days spent on distant seas and mysterious islands...
The book does have many interesting ideas which I hadn't heard about before or at least that hadn't registered with me. For example, the reason why the English went northwards instead. Or the size of Potosi. And, of course, all the parallels of history with the main result of all the events described in this book: the modern world.
"Many of the cultures to which the Europeans travelled came to produce hybrid works of art: statues of the Madonna and child that look distinctly Chinese; carved ivory boxes from Sri Lanka that mixed Hindu deities with representations of European kings and images of Dürer; Portuguese nobles in palanquins in Goan art and their ambassadors in Mughal miniatures; Benin bronzes of crucifixes and European soldiers with muskets and crossbows; intricately carved ivory salt-cellars topped with Western sailing ships. The inventiveness of Chinese craftsmen, their ability to copy and adapt for markets, was already legendary."
Do read.
April 21, 2026
We take a lot of things in our modern world for granted. One of those items is the spices we use in our foods, which were not always available in the mass quantities they are today. Cloves and nutmeg. Pepper and cinnamon. Their histories are filled with violence, colonization, slavery, and greed that many don’t realize or have given thought to.
Spice: The 16th-Century Contest that Shaped the Modern World by Roger Crowley explores these problematic issues that European exploration and exploitation caused for native peoples all around the globe. It’s a sobering look at one of the many aspects of this time in history that shaped our modern world, for better or worse.
While the spice trade is at the forefront of the book’s discussion, Crowley delves deeper into the overarching effects the Spanish, Portuguese, and eventually the Dutch had on mapping and conquering global exploration and trade. The tales within are fascinating, cringe-inducing, heartbreaking, and mind-blowing, and most of those feelings are in the first few chapters!
It amazes me how arrogant these European explorers were and how they felt entitled to lands, islands, and goods that weren’t theirs to take ownership of. The push by many of these expeditions to convert native populations to Christianity and the bloody consequences for refusal to join the faith show a level of ignorance and arrogance that still resonates in our modern world centuries later. Even with these conflicts, the goals of these explorers were clear: seek out and exploit the natural resources on these distant shores for profit and power.
And as they gained a foothold in one part of the world, global competition intensified, with warring factions and countries fighting for supremacy in the trade wars. Stuck in the middle were the native tribes and their communities, who were taken advantage of, victimized, and exterminated in the name of God, global trade, and monetary glory. You’ll see some familiar names appear throughout the book, with fates worthy of applause.
Spice also offers an intriguing look at China and Japan during this era of exploration and at how they dealt with arrogant European explorers and their demands. Let’s just say the Chinese were not willing to acquiesce or capitulate to the demands or interests of these barbaric outsiders, and they made sure future explorers knew they weren’t going to play nice.
There’s so much to learn in a short time, and Roger Crowley delivers an excellent primer for anyone who wants to take their education about the spice trade and world exploration beyond the pages of Spice. This is an unflinching look at the centuries-long consequences and generational destruction unleashed by power-mad men motivated by profit and prestige.
Spice: The 16th-Century Contest that Shaped the Modern World by Roger Crowley is a compelling and engaging read. I highly recommend it.
Spice: The 16th-Century Contest that Shaped the Modern World by Roger Crowley explores these problematic issues that European exploration and exploitation caused for native peoples all around the globe. It’s a sobering look at one of the many aspects of this time in history that shaped our modern world, for better or worse.
While the spice trade is at the forefront of the book’s discussion, Crowley delves deeper into the overarching effects the Spanish, Portuguese, and eventually the Dutch had on mapping and conquering global exploration and trade. The tales within are fascinating, cringe-inducing, heartbreaking, and mind-blowing, and most of those feelings are in the first few chapters!
It amazes me how arrogant these European explorers were and how they felt entitled to lands, islands, and goods that weren’t theirs to take ownership of. The push by many of these expeditions to convert native populations to Christianity and the bloody consequences for refusal to join the faith show a level of ignorance and arrogance that still resonates in our modern world centuries later. Even with these conflicts, the goals of these explorers were clear: seek out and exploit the natural resources on these distant shores for profit and power.
And as they gained a foothold in one part of the world, global competition intensified, with warring factions and countries fighting for supremacy in the trade wars. Stuck in the middle were the native tribes and their communities, who were taken advantage of, victimized, and exterminated in the name of God, global trade, and monetary glory. You’ll see some familiar names appear throughout the book, with fates worthy of applause.
Spice also offers an intriguing look at China and Japan during this era of exploration and at how they dealt with arrogant European explorers and their demands. Let’s just say the Chinese were not willing to acquiesce or capitulate to the demands or interests of these barbaric outsiders, and they made sure future explorers knew they weren’t going to play nice.
There’s so much to learn in a short time, and Roger Crowley delivers an excellent primer for anyone who wants to take their education about the spice trade and world exploration beyond the pages of Spice. This is an unflinching look at the centuries-long consequences and generational destruction unleashed by power-mad men motivated by profit and prestige.
Spice: The 16th-Century Contest that Shaped the Modern World by Roger Crowley is a compelling and engaging read. I highly recommend it.
July 6, 2026
This was excellent. I've read three of Roger Crowley's books now (this, 1453 and Empires of the Sea) and it's the second-best of those (behind EotS). While it has similar strengths to that book, covering a broad period in an engaging yet detailed and revealing way, the momentum and zest of the narrative wasn't quite as compelling as that one. This is still a very good overview of a fascinating period and ticks two big criteria for me: I wish it were longer and I'm looking forward to finding out more about what was covered. Can't wait for Crowley's next book!
January 19, 2026
More than talking about the spices themselves, the book explored trade, economies and most importantly, how global connections were formed in the 16th century. I wish there was a chapter instead of a paragraph alone on how different cuisines were affected by this global trade but well. Never thought Japanese food was actually inspired by Portuguese frying techniques! The last chapter on "Destruction" was important. Period.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 25, 2025
Roger Crowley’s Spice sets out to chart the fierce 16th-century race for control over the lucrative spice trade — a global contest that linked empires, explorers, and merchants in an age of bold ambition and brutal conquest. While the subject is inherently fascinating, the book delivers a mixed experience: moments of gripping storytelling balanced by sections that feel rushed and unevenly developed.
The Magellan Chapter: A Standout Epic
The undisputed highlight of Spice is the chapter devoted to Ferdinand Magellan. Crowley slows down here, giving space to the sheer audacity of Magellan’s circumnavigation attempt — the months at sea, the unimaginable hardship rounding Cape Horn, and the iron determination that drove him to find a western route to the Spice Islands.
Crowley vividly describes how Magellan faced and overcame multiple mutinies from his own men, holding the expedition together through a mix of courage, ruthlessness, and unwavering conviction. The tension is palpable as the ships grope through the labyrinth of fjords at the tip of South America, uncertain whether a passage even exists. And when they are finally “spat out” into the vastness of the Pacific, the scale of their suffering becomes almost unimaginable. Many of the crew died from scurvy and starvation, yet Magellan pressed on, eventually reaching the Philippines.
Even by modern standards, it’s an awe-inspiring journey — a feat of endurance and leadership almost beyond belief. Crowley truly succeeds in making readers feel like part of Magellan’s crew, caught between despair and destiny. It’s easily the book’s most immersive and emotionally resonant section.
The Rest: Crowded Waters
Elsewhere, Spice moves at a far brisker pace. Crowley races through decades of exploration — from Portuguese dominance to Spanish and later Dutch incursions — often introducing new figures only to move on within a few pages. Captains die in mutinies, sailors are killed by islanders, expeditions vanish in storms. Death is ever-present, but treated almost casually — as if it were simply part of the geography of exploration.
That approach may reflect how life and risk were viewed at the time, yet it leaves the reader oddly detached from the human cost. The succession of short episodes — one explorer dies, another takes command, another voyage begins — creates a feeling of distance. It’s history told in snapshots rather than stories, and while it gives a sense of the sheer scale of maritime expansion, it also dilutes its emotional impact. The contrast with the fully realized Magellan narrative couldn’t be sharper.
A Missing Ingredient: The Value of Spice
Another weakness lies in the lack of attention to why the spice trade mattered so much. Crowley mentions nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon throughout, but rarely pauses to explore what they were used for, or why they commanded such extraordinary prices in Europe. A richer picture of how a 16th-century noble household prized and used these spices — as status symbols, medicines, or preservatives — would have grounded the story in human experience.
Only near the end does Crowley briefly note that these once-mythical luxuries now sit cheaply in every kitchen. It’s a fleeting reflection that hints at a far greater story — how taste, wealth, and empire intertwined to reshape the world. Without this color, the reader understands that the spice trade was vital, but not fully why.
A Fresh Lens Near the End
The penultimate chapter offers a welcome change in tone and structure. Crowley shifts to a broader, more analytical narrative, tracing how the spice trade evolved into the first wave of globalization. His depiction of the Manila–Acapulco galleon route — linking the silver of South America with Chinese porcelain and Asian spices — is particularly engaging. It’s one of the few points where the book pauses to show the grand interconnectedness that the earlier chapters only hint at, and it’s easily one of the most rewarding sections.
A Weak Finish
The final chapter, however, loses momentum. Crowley attempts to bridge the past and present by touching on topics like oceanic pollution and underwater shipwrecks — issues that, while important, feel disconnected from the book’s core narrative. The conclusion feels rushed and slightly misplaced, as though tacked on to provide modern relevance rather than closure.
Hints of Another Story
Throughout Spice, Crowley drops tantalizing hints about the Dutch VOC and their later domination of the trade routes, even referencing the opium trade with China. These asides feel like unfinished threads — perhaps groundwork for a future book — but here they only tease what could have been a richer ending.
Final Thoughts
Spice is rich in ambition and occasionally brilliant in execution, but uneven in pacing and focus. Crowley’s command of maritime history is unquestionable, yet his narrative sometimes sacrifices depth for breadth. When the storytelling slows down — as in the Magellan and globalization chapters — the book shines. But too often it sails past its own discoveries.
Verdict: Worth reading for the Magellan chapter and its sweeping view of early globalization, but it misses a golden opportunity to explore why spices mattered so much — and the human cost behind the pursuit of them.
The Magellan Chapter: A Standout Epic
The undisputed highlight of Spice is the chapter devoted to Ferdinand Magellan. Crowley slows down here, giving space to the sheer audacity of Magellan’s circumnavigation attempt — the months at sea, the unimaginable hardship rounding Cape Horn, and the iron determination that drove him to find a western route to the Spice Islands.
Crowley vividly describes how Magellan faced and overcame multiple mutinies from his own men, holding the expedition together through a mix of courage, ruthlessness, and unwavering conviction. The tension is palpable as the ships grope through the labyrinth of fjords at the tip of South America, uncertain whether a passage even exists. And when they are finally “spat out” into the vastness of the Pacific, the scale of their suffering becomes almost unimaginable. Many of the crew died from scurvy and starvation, yet Magellan pressed on, eventually reaching the Philippines.
Even by modern standards, it’s an awe-inspiring journey — a feat of endurance and leadership almost beyond belief. Crowley truly succeeds in making readers feel like part of Magellan’s crew, caught between despair and destiny. It’s easily the book’s most immersive and emotionally resonant section.
The Rest: Crowded Waters
Elsewhere, Spice moves at a far brisker pace. Crowley races through decades of exploration — from Portuguese dominance to Spanish and later Dutch incursions — often introducing new figures only to move on within a few pages. Captains die in mutinies, sailors are killed by islanders, expeditions vanish in storms. Death is ever-present, but treated almost casually — as if it were simply part of the geography of exploration.
That approach may reflect how life and risk were viewed at the time, yet it leaves the reader oddly detached from the human cost. The succession of short episodes — one explorer dies, another takes command, another voyage begins — creates a feeling of distance. It’s history told in snapshots rather than stories, and while it gives a sense of the sheer scale of maritime expansion, it also dilutes its emotional impact. The contrast with the fully realized Magellan narrative couldn’t be sharper.
A Missing Ingredient: The Value of Spice
Another weakness lies in the lack of attention to why the spice trade mattered so much. Crowley mentions nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon throughout, but rarely pauses to explore what they were used for, or why they commanded such extraordinary prices in Europe. A richer picture of how a 16th-century noble household prized and used these spices — as status symbols, medicines, or preservatives — would have grounded the story in human experience.
Only near the end does Crowley briefly note that these once-mythical luxuries now sit cheaply in every kitchen. It’s a fleeting reflection that hints at a far greater story — how taste, wealth, and empire intertwined to reshape the world. Without this color, the reader understands that the spice trade was vital, but not fully why.
A Fresh Lens Near the End
The penultimate chapter offers a welcome change in tone and structure. Crowley shifts to a broader, more analytical narrative, tracing how the spice trade evolved into the first wave of globalization. His depiction of the Manila–Acapulco galleon route — linking the silver of South America with Chinese porcelain and Asian spices — is particularly engaging. It’s one of the few points where the book pauses to show the grand interconnectedness that the earlier chapters only hint at, and it’s easily one of the most rewarding sections.
A Weak Finish
The final chapter, however, loses momentum. Crowley attempts to bridge the past and present by touching on topics like oceanic pollution and underwater shipwrecks — issues that, while important, feel disconnected from the book’s core narrative. The conclusion feels rushed and slightly misplaced, as though tacked on to provide modern relevance rather than closure.
Hints of Another Story
Throughout Spice, Crowley drops tantalizing hints about the Dutch VOC and their later domination of the trade routes, even referencing the opium trade with China. These asides feel like unfinished threads — perhaps groundwork for a future book — but here they only tease what could have been a richer ending.
Final Thoughts
Spice is rich in ambition and occasionally brilliant in execution, but uneven in pacing and focus. Crowley’s command of maritime history is unquestionable, yet his narrative sometimes sacrifices depth for breadth. When the storytelling slows down — as in the Magellan and globalization chapters — the book shines. But too often it sails past its own discoveries.
Verdict: Worth reading for the Magellan chapter and its sweeping view of early globalization, but it misses a golden opportunity to explore why spices mattered so much — and the human cost behind the pursuit of them.
August 5, 2026
A fascinating account of one of history’s greatest adventures. Crowley, ever the talented teller, masterfully waves the fabric of many sources threads into a single panoply of the early days of the Spice trade - the process that lay the foundation of the Modern world.
December 21, 2024
Bust.
Skips around a little too quickly and is very Spain-centric when it really should be Portuguese-centric, must have something to do with the sources available as we really follow Spain as the underdog of the story for a long time - not sure why.
Perhaps a good read for those with no previous bearing on the age of discovery (exploration). And while I understand the parallels, I am not a giant fan of drawing comparisons between the historic exploitation covered here to more modern examples as done so in the author’s covid inspired epilogue.
Skips around a little too quickly and is very Spain-centric when it really should be Portuguese-centric, must have something to do with the sources available as we really follow Spain as the underdog of the story for a long time - not sure why.
Perhaps a good read for those with no previous bearing on the age of discovery (exploration). And while I understand the parallels, I am not a giant fan of drawing comparisons between the historic exploitation covered here to more modern examples as done so in the author’s covid inspired epilogue.
November 2, 2025
Spicy.
November 19, 2025
The title implies a narrow focus, but it felt broad in execution. Crowley is always worthwhile though. Maybe 3.5.
August 24, 2026
3.5. Very informative history of a little known area. Fascinating insight into the exploration of the race to map globe at this time with parallels to today.
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