The british easten company was starting. It had been founded in 16 hudrod two years before, but it wasn't doing anything like as well. The maritime er sector at the time is different. The dutch initially start off a ot with a loter, more shipping, much more skill. And then overtime, eventually that situation reverses. But in the beginning, the dutch have the advantage and galbart. So we basically got ships from western european countries going to asia,. very perilous, as you indicated, round the cape of good hope. They were bringingbng stuff back to europe, but they were also trading within asia s itself
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.