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9781568362496

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"""Corn serves up a mesmerizing blend of rambunctious history, exotic travelogue and seafaring adventure."" -Publishers Weekly""A book of pure delight, a story I hoped would never end."" -George Garrett, Author of Death of a Fox""Beautifully written, handsomely designed, qualities all too rare these days."" -San Francisco Chronicle""Charles Corn's book is learned, colorful, and beautifully researched-a must for any history buff."" -Bill Barich, author of Big Dreams"

A lucid and comprehensive account spanning the nearly four centuries of international intrigue and bloody straggle for control of the vast riches of the Spice Islands.At the dawn of the 16th century, the group of islands astride the equator to the east of Java known as the Moluccas became the stage for the first major colonial conflict played out by the seagoing European powers, and as Corn (Distant Islands: Crossing Indonesia's Ring of Fire, 1991) ably relates, the prizes were the most valuable commodities on earth: nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and later pepper. The Spanish were the first beneficiaries of a cargo of spices brought by the remaining ship of Magellan's last voyage, but it was the Portuguese, urged on by figures such as the Jesuit Francis Xavier, who militarily first took control of the spice trade. Control over the region was finally wrested in the early 17th century by the tyrannical Dutch East India Company, responsible for the massacre of 14,000 of the 15,000 inhabitants of the Banda Islands, the richest spice-producing islands in the East Indies. The final section of Corn's study focuses on the merchants of Salem, who carried on a fantastically lucrative trade in pepper with the canny and often treacherous rajahs on Sumatra. As in most good history books, readers will be challenged by a wealth of revelatory arcana; for instance, unbelievably, until the mid-18th century botanists believed that plants native to one region could not be grown anywhere else; as part of the treaty eliminating England as a player in the Moluccas, Holland traded New Amsterdam - wlater Manhattan - to the English for a tiny island two miles long and a half mile wide. This is as pleasurable and eye-opening a history as one would hope for, generous in its descriptions of exotic islands and exciting in its depictions of the men who made fortunes in their waters. (Kirkus Reviews)

Corn serves up a mesmerizing blend of rambunctious history, exotic travelogue and seafaring adventure. -Publishers Weekly A book of pure delight, a story I hoped would never end. -George Garrett, Author of Death of a Fox Beautifully written, handsomely designed, qualities all too rare these days. -San Francisco Chronicle Charles Corn's book is learned, colorful, and beautifully researched-a must for any history buff. -Bill Barich, author of Big Dreams

Corn serves up a mesmerizing blend of rambunctious history, exotic travelogue and seafaring adventure. -Publishers Weekly<br> A book of pure delight, a story I hoped would never end. -George Garrett, Author of Death of a Fox<br> Beautifully written, handsomely designed, qualities all too rare these days. -San Francisco Chronicle<br> Charles Corn's book is learned, colorful, and beautifully researched-a must for any history buff. -Bill Barich, author of Big Dreams<br>

<br> Corn serves up a mesmerizing blend of rambunctious history, exotic travelogue and seafaring adventure. -Publishers Weekly<p><br> A book of pure delight, a story I hoped would never end. -George Garrett, Author of Death of a Fox<p><br> Beautifully written, handsomely designed, qualities all too rare these days. -San Francisco Chronicle<p><br> Charles Corn's book is learned, colorful, and beautifully researched-a must for any history buff. -Bill Barich, author of Big Dreams<p><br>

Author Information

CHARLES CORN is a native Georgian, Graduated from Washington and Lee University, and took a graduate degree in English from George Washington University. A former officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, he has worked as an editor at several New York and Boston publishing houses, including Dutton, where he served as editor in chief. The author of DISTANT ISLANDS, which Anne Lamott hailed as ""beautiful, innocent, fascinating, and wonderfully written,"" and which Martin Cruz Smith called ""a book to inspire your dreaming,"" Corn now devotes himself full time to writing. His work has appeared in the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, THE NEW YORK TIMES, and ISLANDS magazine, to name a few. He lives in San Francisco and is a frequent and recognized visitor to the Spice Islands.

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