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.