The book East Indies tells of the struggle of the East India Companies for trade supremacy in the Eastern Seas over two centuries. It follows the trade winds and the trade routes to the port cities across Asia and the Orient. Beginning with the trading ports of Malacca in the 16th century, Batavia in the 17th century and concluding with the founding of Singapore and Hong Kong , which became some of the world’s largest trading ports in the 19th century.
When you read ‘East Indies’ by Ian Burnet you can almost smell exotic spices over salt spray and wet wood of the ships that transported the goods back to Europe. Following from his previous book, ‘Spice Islands’ in which Ian documented the history of the spice trade in the Maluku and Banda islands of Indonesia, where two very important and highly sought spices – cloves and nutmeg – originated, ‘East Indies’ looks at the impact of the European explorers and traders.
Ian has once again researched his topic thoroughly, and ‘East Indies’ is beautifully illustrated, filled with georgeous maps and pictures evoking the age of sail.
Highly recommended. Melanie Ryan— Limelight Book Reviews
There has been a recent spike in sales of East Indies from the Amazon website, so I did a Google search to find out why. The good news is that East Indies has been ranked at number 6 out of 33 books listed as suggested reading on Pacific History by the History Club, as on the link below.
http://www.historyoftheunitedstates.net/bibliography/pacific-history-suggested-reading.php