The Spice Route or Guide to the European Union

The Spice Route: A History

Author: John Keay

The Spice Route is one of history's greatest anomalies: shrouded in mystery, it existed long before anyone knew of its extent or configuration. Spices came from lands unseen, possibly uninhabitable, and almost by definition unattainable; that was what made them so desirable. Yet more livelihoods depended on this pungent traffic, more nations participated in it, more wars were fought for it, and more discoveries resulted from it than from any other global exchange. Epic in scope, marvelously detailed, laced with drama, The Spice Route spans three millennia and circles the world to chronicle the history of the spice trade. With the aid of ancient geographies, travelers' accounts, mariners' handbooks, and ships' logs, John Keay tells of ancient Egyptians who pioneered maritime trade to fetch the incense of Arabia, Graeco-Roman navigators who found their way to India for pepper and ginger, Columbus who sailed west for spices, de Gama, who sailed east for them, and Magellan, who sailed across the Pacific on the exact same quest. A veritable spice race evolved as the west vied for control of the spice-producing islands, stripping them of their innocence and the spice trade of its mystique. This enthralling saga, progressing from the voyages of the ancients to the blue-water trade that came to prevail by the seventeenth century, transports us from the dawn of history to the ends of the earth.

Table of Contents:

1	Before the fall	1
2	On the origin of species	18
3	Frankincense and Cinnamon	32
4	Hippalos and the passage across	54
5	Land of the luminous carbuncle	72
6	Insects on splinters	89
7	The world travellers	105
8	East to west	125
9	Christians and spices	146
10	Peppered ports and curried friar	165
11	Pacific approaches	185
12	Blue water	206
13	Infected by spices	227
	Epilogue : outsold and outsourced	249

Interesting book: Economics By Design or A Framework for Management

Guide to the European Union

Author: Dick Leonard

Guide to the European Union is well established as the clearest and most comprehensive guide to how the EU operates, and this new edition brings readers up to date at a crucial stage in its development.