The idea of a european monopoly is a bit of a joke when you realize that it doesn't mean anything once you get past the cape to the local people. Monopoly such as it is a bit like the slave trade. The reason for trying to restrict supply into europe is to keep prices high, but not too high to stop. With free trade, what you might expect is a glut in the market and he price dropping,. People wouldn't then see spicers as a luxury good any more. You wanted to comeancres yo, originally wanted to come in on china. It's a very good corrective bat. By factory, i mean a kind of office,
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.