Spice

Spice follows the sixteenth-century struggle to reach and control the sources of cloves, nutmeg and other commodities that commanded extraordinary prices in Europe. After Portuguese forces reached the Moluccas in 1511, Lisbon’s attempt to secure the spice routes drew Spain into a competing search for a western passage. Ferdinand Magellan’s Spanish-backed expedition crossed the strait that bears his name and the Pacific before his death at Mactan, leaving Juan Sebastián Elcano to bring the Victoria home and complete the first circumnavigation.

Roger Crowley extends the story from 1511 to 1571 as Iberian expeditions, merchants and soldiers linked the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans and collided with established Asian trading worlds. The contest produced exploration, fortified settlements, enslavement, shipwreck and warfare as Europeans tried to impose control over the Moluccas and surrounding routes. The book treats the spice race as part of the creation of a connected global economy, while emphasising the human and political costs of the first sustained European colonial encounters across maritime Asia.