The introduction of a large amount of things like silk and porcelain changes culture within europe hy. When you start using china, as opposed to, say, pewter, you've got to perhaps be more cautious with it. And i suppose spices are a much easier sell than some of the later products, because it really changes how people live.
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.