Hellen: The dutch don't have a market of their own, so they export goods that are meant for export. She says the idea of exporting silver in other countries has huge debates in the dutch republic. Hellen: For them, it's not a problem. They gain more silver from the strait than that they lose. But when they went to east asia, an they were as busy trying to capture markets as anybody else. Exactly. And the food influence on food in south africa.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC, known in English as the Dutch East India Company. The VOC dominated the spice trade between Asia and Europe for two hundred years, with the British East India Company a distant second. At its peak, the VOC had a virtual monopoly on nutmeg, mace, cloves and cinnamon, displacing the Portuguese and excluding the British, and were the only European traders allowed access to Japan.
With
Anne Goldgar
Reader in Early Modern European History at King's College London
Chris Nierstrasz
Lecturer in Global History at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, formerly at the University of Warwick
And
Helen Paul
Lecturer in Economics and Economic History at the University of Southampton
Producer: Simon Tillotson.